I am no longer using Twitter.
This is a personal post; I may move it to my personal website later and will create a redirect here if I do so.
Edit: 8/8/2024 I have edited this post to now say that I will instead be scaling back my usage of Twitter. My plans remain the same, I will start with my primary account and slowly move over others, however I will state on each of my intentions to post less. Only hours after my initial annoucement, the tragic news of the passing of Furaffinity owner Dragoneer prompted me to immediately return to share my feelings.
As of today, I am scaling back my usage of Twitter. I will start with my personal account (@rowedahelicon) and slowly move others over. As an alternative, I will continue using BlueSky and Mastodon.
I have been on the internet for a very long time, and I am no stranger to the trouble associated with moving away from a large social network entirely. Trying to move away invokes an issue where people will not move to a quiet platform if there is no one there, and no one is there because no one will move. It grounds a lot of people in a handful of places, but there is always a breaking point; people don't use Skype over Discord much these days! In the case of Twitter in particular, I've seen numerous events since it was purchased by Elon Musk claiming that it is dying or will be dead in a given time.
Again, having lived through numerous cases of this scenario, I have retained a healthy skepticism that things are truly "over"; Twitter is still technically around, right? However, today's announcement that X Corp. has filed a lawsuit with the Global Alliance for Responseable Media makes me question if this actually is the beginning of the end. Since Twitter was sold, there has been a reduction in features, a reduction in quality (media failing to play, posts failing to load, etc.), a tremendous rise in bot/scam activity, and most dreadfully, a dramatic increase in racist, transphobic, vile, and otherwise disruptful activity.
Elon's attempt at making a platform for free speech has failed, and this lawsuit only signifies (to me) that rather than look inward, they are choosing to believe they are being victimized and punished for their efforts, rather than acknowledge that advertisers do not want their ads placed next to fascist rhetoric. I've never been too optimistic that a drastic cleanup would ever occur, but like many other fellow artists and content creators, I rely on communal spaces to help gather support for our efforts and projects. However, I can safely say that I genuinely believe this could end in the company's ruin, and I would like to focus my attention more on the two alternatives I have listed above rather than continue to sift through garbage content and scams in my DMs.
My input means little, but I at least hope this may encourage others to see things as I do and consider making the move elsewhere, even if they have a temporary reduction in their reach. I've already been cross-posting all of my content between the three places for a while; I even wrote my own tool to do so! If the day comes that Twitter's ownership is exchanged back into the hands of a capable individual, I will return.