Taking a Break From Twitter
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Taking a Break From Twitter

Byrichard

I have used Twitter almost every single day since I created my first account in 2006. During this time I have met a lot of people, gone to a lot of events, learned a lot and been part of communities. The decision to take a break is not an easy one to make, because it involves losing touch with a community. It involves leaving a social network at the moment when you’re following and conversing with more people.


Twitter icon transforming into the Mastodon M
Twitter icon transforming into the Mastodon M


I feel obligated to take a break for two main reasons. The first is that it makes rational sense to leave social networks when their ownership and morality swing to the Far Right. I don’t want to read news by Far Right newspapers, watch their news, listen to their shows, or be part of their social networks.


Theoretically I could simply shrink the number of people I follow and keep my tweets private, and I’d be happy with that. The real reason I want to take a twitter break is that I don’t want Musk to win. I don’t want him to be able to tweet “oh look, the servers are under pressure” and having leading poll questions that provide false justification for immoral points of view.


From a European perspective we cannot continue to use an app where disinformation is seen as free speech. We cannot be on a social network where the mainstream media, despite their Right Wing ownership in many cases, is denigrated and where he wants “citizen” journalism to thrive.


“So it’s perhaps no surprise that Musk, a billionaire businessman, went off on Apple this past week. He understands that the iPhone maker is an impediment to his financial goals.” source.


If I stop using Twitter, it is because those in charge at the moment go against sense of ethics and morality. I don’t want to be part of a network where people are brainwashed and misled. and where mob mentality is encouraged, rather than rational reason and thought.


Twitter should never have had an IPO. It should never have agreed to being sold, as it enriched greedy people, but with a cost to society at large. It should have become a non profit organisation, working as a medium by which for people to communicate with each other globally, where morality and ethics were prioritised, where rational, decent people made decisions.


We have Mastodon now, and with time Mastodon will be as vibrant as Twitter, but for now using Mastodon means being isolated from a community we enjoy, meeting in a place we no longer want to go to.


And finally, I don’t want Twitter to go away. I want user engagement to drop long enough for Musk to rethink his political lean long enough for twitter to become a place for good, once more.

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Threaded conversations and community

Byrichard

From the 1970s to 2007 we had threaded conversations through bulletin boards, forums, groups and other centralising discussion points. For a brief window of about two years conversations became so captivating that people wanted to meet in person as strong friendships were established. By 2009-2010 the threaded and personal conversations between web users was hijacked by “social media” marketers and so the speed of conversation and quality of interactions collapsed. In it’s place hashtags would replace user engagement with quick metrics.

The golden age of conversation has been replaced by the dark ages of indifference. Every day that we spend online we see how disengaged people have become. Look at twitter. Do you still see user to user conversations. Look at Facebook. Do you still see engaging content and passionate conversations? I see a waste of time. The conversations which were taking place have been replaced by dumbed down headlines and sensationalist content.

For several years we have heard about how corporations should not have access to our data because of what they will do with it. From where I am surfing the web and interacting with the online community I see a more serious problem. I see that as the chance of individual to individual conversations has decreased so the quality of shared articles, videos and other content has been dumbed down. This is evident on Facebook and Twitter. These networks are becoming ghost towns. They have millions of user profiles that are slowly going dormant.

That social media networks are going dormant is excellent. Instead of wasting time with Ello, Diaspora and other solutions I believe that going back to the blogging habit will benefit everyone. It is decentralised, it is interest based and it is long form. Through Worpdress.org tools, through Disqus and other solutions so our ability to connect and communicate is improved. It forces us to be positive and to be accountable. Everything that you share can contribute to your reputation and help share your passions. We should not be hidden behind silos and we should not be anonymous. We need to break the twitter and Facebook duopoly.

A Proposed Social Media Deontology.

Byrichard

Article 1. I shall take interest in the projects of others before my own. In this capacity, I will pay attention to what others are doing and see how I may help them bring those projects to fruition


Article 2. I shall Participate as actively as possible in as many discussions as possible. That is to say that I will make sure to get to know the audience that is listening to me. This may include answering any and all tweets, commenting on blog posts and more


Article3. Each person shall be treated equally. The more time I offer to an individual the more time I want it to be reciprocated. If I offer to help you with your projects then the least you can do is answer my tweets, comments, and more. That is to say that I shall demonstrate that I do respect the person whom I am conversing with


Article 4. I shall not promote my work at the detriment of being social. I shall promote what I have done once for every ten comments, tweets, or blog posts I have written. In so doing I make sure that the toxicity of repetition is not too severe for those following me. This takes into consideration that whilst some people may use the aforementioned social network for just ten minutes a day three times a week others may use it all day long. As a result, I will respect the more frequent users of the social websites.


Article 5. The rule of participation. This is the rule that if I go to an event for a certain website I must have spent a certain number of hours being active on the website. Social networks are to be thought of as skiing levels with degrees of achievement. If you are new to a social network realise that when used properly the social network may be thought of as a way of life. In particular, this means that if you go to a blogger event make sure that you have read a few blog posts before coming to the event. If you come to a Seesmeetup make sure that you are with someone who has been an active participant. If you come to a tweetup don’t sign up three days before with no understanding of what the site is about.


Article 6. The attention rule. Never post to a service you are not actively monitoring. If you post to Jaiku then make sure you keep an eye on what people are doing. If you use Ping.fm and other services make sure that you have a way of being alerted when someone comments. This is because social media is about sharing. If a person responds too frequently with no acknowledgment of what they are saying then the “social” aspect of social media is devalued. In those cases, you might as well be following an RSS feed in Google reader.


Article 7. The unfollow privilege. When a social media participant feels a decline in his enjoyment of service due to how newer members are using the site then he reserves and even has the obligation to unfollow the offending party. Attention in social media is a privilege, not a right, anytime you broadcast rather than participate we reserve the right to unfollow you. This is not un-doable. If your participation changes then we may follow you back.


This was written as a result of how disappointed I am with certain people and how they use twitter. If you feel that anything should be changed then let me know. It’s meant to be dynamic.