By Dennis D. McDonald

A lot of recent online chatter references Elon Musk’s Twitter travails. I have not really followed the hubbub that much since I deleted Twitter a couple of months ago. I do get the impression that (a) things are not going too well and (b) any mess at Twitter has more to do with management style and incompetence than with technology per se.

Despite the mess, many still value Twitter. I respect that. At the same time, I was definitely happy to move on as I discussed in On the Possibility of Life Without Social Media.

I don’t really view Twitter as a “social” platform anymore. I reserve communicating with friends and family to other media. At one time I did have thousands of Twitter “followers.” Promoting my own website on Twitter was a regular part of my professional advertising.  It worked well as part of the mix of media I used to promote my own consulting services. But I eventually pulled back from that given the frequent nastiness the platform promotes, even though for a time I dabbled with a paid Twitter account.

Two things led to my finally deleting my account a couple of months ago:

1. Misinformation.  I know Twitter is popular among journalists as an “early warning system.” I have found a lot of misinformation and outright lying on Twitter and have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with that. I’ve moved on to other news sources.

2. Trump. I view Trump as an enemy of democracy and a purveyor of hate. That he was eventually dropped by pre-Musk Twitter I viewed as a good thing. Unfortunately, too many Twitter accounts insisted on republishing what he was doing, thinking they were performing an important public service by exposing Trump to the world. Trust me – I don’t need any more evidence! I just want him to fade away --  ideally from behind bars!

So, I’m off Twitter. I have many sources of information I can consult to see what’s going on in the world. Getting away from over reliance on formerly reliable sources like the Washington Post has been a good thing.

One question I do have now is whether  a nonprofit organization I volunteer for should continue to use Twitter as a channel for promoting its brand of arts related activities. Is there a danger that the degradation Twitter is currently experiencing will somehow reflect badly on legitimate users? For example, even if bot-based pornography accounts are really being used by the Chinese government to draw attention away from its repressive activities, I have no desire to spend time dealing with that.

 Copyright 2022 by Dennis D. McDonald.