I joined Twitter in 2010 and today I have deleted it. The final straw has been recent rioting and how the platform was used so easily to distribute lies and provoke violence. Pay Elon Musk for a blue tick to have your shite promoted aggressively. Every post that has a world view different to Musk’s has prominent responses that are generally lazy insults. Musk is helping to fund Trump’s campaign. News feeds have a suspiciously large amounts of nastiness and/or irrelevant confrontational tosh along with sprinklings of graphic pornography that never featured before.
About two months ago I reported a cartoon depicting a young woman being gang-raped by a group of evil-looking dark-skinned men, one brandishing a copy of the Qur’an. A man to their right is shouting “that’s my daughter!” to a policeman who cautions him that he mustn’t complain because that would be racist. In the foreground Nigel Farage is saying ‘what’s going on here?’ And two men in suits marked “Labour” and “Conservative” are in the background of this delightful tableau, graphically buggering members of the British public.
A few days later, I received a reply that this did not meet the threshold for promoting hatred.
I don’t like the impression it gives me when I scroll through it; that the world is full of nasty, useless people – when I know it isn’t. It makes me feel I want to smack down the bigots and racists but then you can’t be sure if these really are people. There used to be a lot more comedy and ingenuity. On the very rare occasion I made a joke that more than one or two people liked, it was even quite nice. But Musk has spoiled it – it’s rotten now.
I was on it for six months or so but left when Musk bought it. It was already a cess pit at that stage. I can only imagine the vile shite on it now.
On a brighter note, I get the impression that with the positive scenes on the streets of Britain last night and the re-energised Dem campaign across the Atlantic, that people are now growing tired of the constant negativity and punching down promoted by Trump / Farage / MAGA et al, including here in my own country. Seems to me people are starting to look forward so recent issues may be the dying wasp syndrome. The US elections will be a marker. Maybe I’m just too optomistic for my own good…
I’m with you, Max the Dog. Three cautious Cheers for optimism and positivity.
Thanks for a great description of the ugly reality of Twitter, Black Celebration.
I must follow in your footsteps!
I’m still on it but rarely look at it for the reasons you state. I think I’ll exit too.
I block, mute and curate my Twitter. It’s very pleasant now. The current owner will not be there forever and will change. It needs people on there who aren’t far-right crypto-loving wingnuts.
It’s the only social media platform I’ve ever really got to grips with and enjoyed. I’m not going anywhere.
I’d like to say I’ll delete Twitter but I’m not that disciplined. I have got a lot better at blocking blue ticks whose main purpose is to aggravate for clicks (including Musk the other day).
Leaving Twitter because of all the far-right raving suggests to me that people must be using the For You feed rather than the Following one. On the latter, the only knuckledragging Nazism you’ll see is whenever some misguided people you follow retweet it in order to fingerwag at it, thereby extending its reach even further. Mute and block are your friends too. The only real difference I’ve noticed between pre- and post-Musk Twitter is how many ads for pound-shop products there now are, together with the intermittent presence of sexytime likebots. Both are eminently ignorable.
I only used it for people I followed but I still came off it and haven’t looked at it since shortly after Musk took over. It was clear very quickly what he intended to do with it and he’s an arse of mammoth proportions. Thank God he’s not born in the USA.
I didn’t delete my account in the hope that he got bored and sold it. Doesn’t look as if that’s going to happen but I removed it from all my devices.
I won’t use Facebook for similar reasons (plus the fact that I have no friends)
Never saw the appeal so never signed up.
Aside from a rarely updated FB page, this place is the only social media
I am actively involved in
Snap.
Its never appealed to me in the slightest. I only have FB as it was the only way to get updates for certain music acts that I like – I never post myself.
Same here – not even on FB!
Annoyingly it is quite good for news though. You do have to actively zap tossers if they pop up though. Generally I don’t have to that often.
The only Tweets I follow are vinylcarbooty because minibreakfast stopped hanging out here.
FB for friends and occasional family- not even Mrs F – mainly just for crap jokes. But I am getting fed up with the amount of ads and crap.
Armando Iannucci replying to musk after wondering if he was a bot.
I realised a long time ago that it was making me ill, and stopped using it. I can’t bear the endless sharing of opinions that I don’t need to know about, and I don’t want ‘access’ to my family members thoughts, let alone celebrities or (god help us) ‘brands’.
Even here, there are some strange characters who just come to wind people up.
The only social media I do these days is passive browsing on LinkedIn, which is absolutely appalling and doesn’t even compensate with graphic pornography and sexytime likebots (yet).
Life is far too short to have to listen to what everyone thinks all the bloody time. My own brain is producing quite enough thoughts already, thank you very much, and some of them are even lucid.
My Twitter is mostly quite refined. More BBC4 than ITV. As Archie says, it’s what you make it. It can be quite erudite and funny.
Facebook is mostly photo sharing. Harmless. A few jokes.
Even this place has it’s maddening moments, people who think their contributions matter more. Getting the tone a bit wrong.
Wrong 😂
Always certain, often Wrong
Facebook for family and friends, Twitter for news and nutters.
This. But also Twitter for Archie V, Niall B and other decent folk, plus grammarians, pedants, writers and other eccentrics.
As mentioned above, set Twitter to Following. It’s like my own little room of liberal lefties. Today it’s nothing but “Isn’t the UK great, did you see what happened in Brighton last night?” It’s all rather touching. And it breaks news faster than most…
Never really saw the point of Twitter unless you are using it to publicise things like your own business or something.
I am on Facebook only, mainly for family and friends. I am really beginning to hate it though. It seems to be 95% crap.
And I spend too much time online as it is.
Never thought of Twitter as anything else but somewhere you follow someone you like (eg for me Jason Isbell, James O’Brien, Caitlin Moran, Nigella Lawson etc) and pretend you’re really friends. ..
Nigella has a restraining order on me 😉
Or, alternatively, follow complete strangers and call them rude names.
You smell and you can’t hear and your taste in music is terrible and nobody likes you apart from Enrico and Enrico likes anyone who pays.
Your point being?
You’re a complete stranger and I was being rude cos I know even if you had the bottle, which you obviously don’t, you wouldn’t dare raise one of your pathetically weedy fingers towards me cos I’m hard and you’re a wimp
“Rude”? I thought you were being surprisingly observant, given your age.
Give me an hour or two to get out of this chair and I’ll chin you ..
I just follow journalists and news channels and one or two real people. I periodically have a clear out. Stopping people retweeting is quite effective. The most sensible people can retweet utter crap so I have a “one crap retweet and you’re out” rule. Blocking certain words is effective too, such as “Strictly”, “Meghan” etc.
The more telegraphic the communication means, the less ability to provide nuance. Maybe that’s the point. It took me years to even text-message, and I still punctuate them. I don’t think I miss anything by not using Twitter/ X/ Telegram/ TikTok/ whatever. Email, FaceBook, and WhatsApp if I must (some family want it) suffices.
Never been on Twitter and don’t believe I have missed anything.
Only social media I use is Facebook, and that’s just mainly for posting stupid jokes.
Others I follow (Friends in Facebook terms, but actual people I have actually met) do use it a lot and it’s good to interact (again, more stupid jokes).
My daughter is on it too, which means I get to see daily photos of my grandchildren.
My main problem with my Twitter experience is how dull it is. While I’ve never actively participated I joined during lockdown for the listening parties and there was lots of comedy, music and the like. It was a nice escape from anxiety. I gradually followed more and more people, always impeccably liberal and my feed was full of satisfyingly anti-Brexit, anti-Tory, anti-Trump stuff (apart from when they were retweeting some right-wing agitator in order to tut at them, which was/is often). But in the end why?
The riots have completely done my nut though. *Everybody* seemed to want to say ‘This is not who we are’ after the rioting. Then they all wanted to say ‘This is who we are’ after the counter-protests. I mean, duh. Some seemed to want to say these things 10 times a day. And they then all started retweeting each others tweets. Until my feed was so full of fluffy, smug hugs it was enough to turn the wooliest liberal (i.e. me) into Michael Douglas in Falling Down. Is a single mind changed? Just one vast echo chamber of like-minded opinions whichever side you’re on. Result: over the last few days a massive cull of those I’m following and a resolution to visit less.
Musk of course is also a megalomaniacal bell-end so is another good reason to dislike it.
I set up a Twatter account when it was getting up to speed. I sent my first ever Twat to a fellow Afterworder, who had been enthusiastic about the platform’s promise, to say that I’d joined in. I then watched a rapid slide into lowest common denominator territory and shortly thereafter sent my second ever, and final, Twat to the same individual to say that I not staying on board and was about to delete my account. End of involvement. Dodged a deep well of human excrescence there.
A last attempt to say that as long as you decide what you want coming into your feed it can still be a rewarding and informative space..
Even if you achieve that though, the ads and the For You tab have all the horrid stuff. It’s a bit like hanging out at an abbatoir because they’ve got a good slushy machine.
Does the slushy at the abbatoir do a vegan option?
Yes, a good vegan slushy machine in an abbatoir would have been better. I can imagine Alexei Sayle saying that.
No ads on my feed, never touch the For You tab. All I see is nice people being nice to me and they are all my bestest buddies and we share everything and Billy Bragg once sent me a thumbs up……
Adblocker blocks ads, who’d a thunk..
Had to unfollow Billy Bragg due to his unbearably smug holier than thouness on everything under the sun.
In a private Tweet, Billy says he’s never liked you anyway…
(Got to admit he tries my patience sometimes)
Billy gives a gentle shake of his head and with an indulgent chuckle patiently explains how if you would only listen you would realise that he is right about everything.
Just so you don’t have to look, Ian McNabb is spouting bollocks on Facebook again. Yuk.
McNob
Is that a Macvities chocolate McHob McNob?
The Small Price of a Digestive
⬆️
I shall claim this as my own.
There is a MacNab’s country store here in Ballater. I am tempted to pop in and ask if he has any bell ends.
Please tell me it’s currently 14C in Ballater, there’s a slight drizzle and the chippie’s just closed. As I melt down here there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. ..
Not far off, 16C today with sunshine and showers. It hit 23 degrees last week and was sweltering.
We’ve only had one proper downpour, when I was half way round loch Muick – proper horizontal rain which took no time to get straight through my waterproofs, rendering undercrackers and socks sodden.
Home tomorrow, 31C on Monday. Oof.
How’s the camper van?
It was brill. We’ve been in a massive flat with family this week. I will write up my thoughts on the van when I have access to a proper keyboard.
I never got on with Twitter. Seemed to bring out the worst in nice people. When I was having a mini crisis last year I dumped all social media for six months, and when I looked back in, its was the same nice people still being cunty about strangers, and even more people amplifying nonsense as if it were truth. Plus ads every third post.
I still look at it. As per Lodes and Archie I stick to following and actively block.
However, the great exodus once Musk took over and, in a lot of cases, before he had even done anything, means it is a less vibrant place these days.
The other thing which improves the experience is blocking retweets. Some people can’t help themselves from retweeting stuff from places you’d never go. Two clicks stops that.
Shut it down!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/09/uk-far-right-riots-elon-musk-x?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Good article. Completely agree.
Something else to consider.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/09/social-media-problem-keir-starmer-elon-musk-inequality-poverty
“X has been banned in China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Which is something for the good guys calling for it to be banned in the UK to consider.”
Elon Musk is losing money on X in a way never previously seen in corporate history. He’s taken to suing former advertisers for withdrawing their ads (he’ll definitely lose that case) having previously told them to “Fuck Off” when they threatened to do so. He’s going to run X into the ground and then abandon it’s corpse. Perhaps we should just let him do that.
I note that KS, having directly addressed Musk when the riots first started, has gone quiet on the subject. He has also told his party not to attack X. He knows a Twitter spat is not a good look. Besides, Labour need X as much as anyone else trying to get a message out to the masses.
I think KS has handled the unrest well, visibly leading at emergency Cobra meetings and delaying his holiday. Large police presence, rapid harsh sentencing and charging people with committing hate crime on social media, all in a glare of publicity, has made some think twice.
The peaceful counter demonstrations on Wednesday were awesome.
Then he can rename it Ex X.
Feline pissed off after reading Larry’s post about freedom of speech,
Elon M has now given the Downing Street Cat his marching orders from
Twatter/X
Larry was still there when I looked just now.
Bloody NewsNight
I watched Newsnight yesterday for the first time in ages . Wasn’t as good as I remember it. Kirsty Wark replaced by a blonde lady who I didn’t recognise. Pah.
The change from story-based analysis to round-table discussion has basically killed it.
That they did this during what they knew would be an election year does not bode well
Money saving.
Credibility eroding corner cutting
Wreckers of law and order. Communists, Maoists, Trotskyists, neo-Trotskyists, crypto-Trotskyists, union leaders, Communist union leaders, atheists, agnostics, long-haired weirdos, short-haired weirdos, vandals, hooligans, football supporters, namby-pamby probation officers, rapists, papists, papist rapists, foreign surgeons – headshrinkers, who ought to be locked up, Wedgwood Benn, keg bitter, punk rock, glue-sniffers, “Play For Today”, Clive Jenkins, Roy Jenkins, Up Jenkins, up everybody’s, Chinese restaurants – why do you think Windsor Castle is ringed with Chinese restaurants?
“It’s the end of the world and I know it…..”
“And I feel fine!”
“You realise the sort of people you’re going to attract, don’t you, Jimmy?”
That’s the one Hubes!
Fantastically funny .
What do these things have in common?
Opera
Orangutans
Otters
Outerwear
Over the Garden Wall
PJ Harvey
Pants
Port Adelaide FC
Preakness Stakes
Priti Patel
Richmond FC
Ricky Gervais
Rishi Sunak
Robert Peston
Rock
Royal Navy
Give up? They are all things that Twix alleges I’m interested in, per the Interests list buried in Settings. That’s half an hour spent unticking boxes I won’t get back again.
This is handy, from the wise Edwin Hayward.
https://x.com/edwinhayward/status/1821220161237418043
That is most excellent
This is my Twitter. And I’m still here.
I’m just trying out Bluesky which seems a whole lot more civilised. Anyone here made the move? It would be nice if a few did.
Just removed F*cebook from my phone though I have to use it for various reasons. It’ll have to be via desktop.
Been playing around with Bluesky last few days. Looks a cool place – is there an Idiot’s Guide anywhere?
Hey you idiot, Lodes – try this
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-get-started-using-bluesky-social-everything-you-need-to-know/
Awful lot of cats.