I’ve resisted for a while, but can I delay it any longer?
Social network X (formerly known as Twitter) has become an unusable heap of steaming nonsense, overflowing with violent videos and fake accounts pushing extreme agendas.
But why am I so reluctant to leave it in the past where it clearly belongs?
Twitter was the first social media account I started under the Fat Gay Vegan name. My memory is a bit hazy (insert joke about B12 deficiency here) but I think my presence on Twitter started in 2010. I was full of hope about making the world a better place by sharing vegan news with likeminded people, while encouraging even more people to explore their compassionate side.
I used the platform to build connections with vegan and social justice activists all over the planet. It was a tool I used to share my thoughts, support independent vegan business, and improve outcomes for animals. The sense of community I experienced through Twitter was affirming and I was able to communicate and promote my vegan events with very little negative experience.
Yes there were trolls as with any online space, however the good outweighed the bad.
But then Elon Musk happened. Let’s talk about the rapid destruction of a once positive and nurturing online community.
The image above is a screenshot of an X post I was served this morning. It is obviously nonsense, a clickbait-ridden pile of digital dog shit which is becoming the norm when it comes to the content I see.
I seldomly see any posts about animal rights or veganism. My timeline was once filled with news of plant-based advancements and music news from artists I admire, now it is a sea of bigoted and hate-filled conspiracies in support of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson, anti-vaxxers, and JK Rowling.
Any content I see related to topics I am genuinely interested in such as veganism, human rights, LGBTQ+ communities, and music is almost exclusively negative and derogative. X is a deliberate propaganda machine designed to influence and push the general public away from compassion and it is exhausting.
Another massive change with this platform since Musk took over is the unchecked violent content dominating my feed.
Everyday I am now subjected to people being injured, attacked, shot, and killed. These videos are reminiscent of the dark ‘snuff video’ days of the Internet. Without warning, I am shown footage of people being shot dead, punched unconscious, and attacked in street brawls.
This content is often used a device to heighten racist attacks on particular demographics.
X has become a hostile place with no redeeming qualities. The only positive things I can recall all reside in the past and no matter how much I fight against the trolls and bots, I am losing. I block, I flag, and I report but this only seems to increase the frequency of the disgusting content.
Part of me hopes I can ride out this dark period and one day Twitter will be restored to a more reasonable and usable state, but perhaps I am being delusional.
And more than delusional, am I being complicit in these 24-hour a day attacks on minorities by being a part of X? I don’t think it is ethical to be a member of a social media network that champions hatred, violence, and extremist propoganda.
How do you all feel? Riding out the storm is no longer an option, right?
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Your experience on twitter (which I’ve now left) reflects my current experience on facebook. The platform is now designed to keep you on it for as long as possible and it seems the best way to do that is to encourage argument. I regularly see all sorts of right wing/carnivore nonsense and the temptation is to engage. And then they’ve hooked you into coming back to carry on the argument. I don’t see the groups I care about anymore and updates from friends are few and far between. I’m torn because facebook is a great tool for work but its getting more and more toxic daily….I can’t help but hope theres going to be a really good alternative that will kill facebook and twitter dead, and they’ll both be a digital memory (hello myspace!)
It’s very difficult. We recently decided to removes links to Twitter on all our social media, website, snapshots & other content for the community club I’m working for (we hadn’t updated it since last autumn). I have great sympathy for the decent people that I follow on Twitter (eg a handful of comedians, people promoting learning Welsh etc) who spent years building an audience on there & are still tweeting, to an ever-dwindling number of followers, so currently look every day or two to see what they are doing. Many have left the platform but haven’t really found a natural home: a wave went to Mastodon when Musk first took over and, more recently, others moved to Bluesky. But I don’t get the engaging, useful mix of content on those I used to find on Twitter a couple of years ago. Luckily, as I don’t engage much nowadays, ignore any adverts & always ensure it’s set to ‘Following’ (as it has a habit of changing to ‘For you’ which chucks up more unwanted content), I don’t appear to be getting the awful content you are receiving. I still report & block where I see offensive behaviour, despite almost every complaint – predictably – being rejected now. Similarly, with Facebook, so much advertising & click-bait nonsense appears in my timeline nowadays, I end up just specifically looking directly at the half a dozen most important groups I follow, probably missing useful info from others. I find the platforms less useful than they once were. It’s a bit tiring that people are keen to keep moving platforms (other than boycotting) & many of my friends & acquaintances no longer like using email & try to persuade me to get WhatsApp or TikTok.
Take care.
Jeanette