Techrights is not in social control media and it helps keep Techrights more focused (and leaving Twitter behind lets me publish more in Techrights)

Summary: The social control media phenomenon (sites like Twitter and Facebook) is counterproductive and corrosive; Techrights isn't on social control media and I too gradually cut down on it

THE DECISION to leave Twitter 'in spirit' about one week ago was probably the best decision made so far this year. This social control media or 'flame machine' is busy promoting another World War right now and it is banning several left-leaning people I know (while letting hate and racism carry on unabated, including from influential accounts). See this new example. The list of things I dislike about the platform:

• Ads, even inside one's timeline and notifications (it has gotten more aggressive over time). That isn't always trivial to block.
• Suggestions of topics and people to follow, with no option of disabling those. This infringes on neutrality principles and lets Twitter set the agenda.
• Various kinds of abuse, including death threats and online mobs that distort their targets' words.
• General waste of time and mental clutter.
• Censorship and surveillance.
• Misinformation. Lots of it.

The sole argument I have for not completely deleting the account is that it still gets many impressions (with no extra effort on my part), albeit fewer over time, despite growth in so-called 'followers' and number of 'tweets' (which peaked around 2019). Here's the data for the past 4 years (3-4 years ago is, in my experience, roughly the time when Twitter felt like it was already losing its mass appeal, then cutting off access to third-party software and adding loads of ads instead).

May 2020 Summary Tweets 8,548 Tweet impressions 2.29M

Apr 2020 Summary Tweets 9,580 Tweet impressions 2.42M

Mar 2020 Summary Tweets 9,140 Tweet impressions 2.4M

Feb 2020 Summary Tweets 8,129 Tweet impressions 2.26M

Jan 2020 Summary Tweets 8,244 Tweet impressions 2.39M

Dec 2019 Summary Tweets 8,241 Tweet impressions 2.21M

Nov 2019 Summary Tweets 8,132 Tweet impressions 2.51M

Oct 2019 Summary Tweets 8,481 Tweet impressions 2.28M

Sep 2019 Summary Tweets 7,793 Tweet impressions 2.82M

Aug 2019 Summary Tweets 6,748 Tweet impressions 2.36M

Jul 2019 Summary Tweets 7,651 Tweet impressions 3.98M

Jun 2019 Summary Tweets 10.5K Tweet impressions 4.92M

May 2019 Summary Tweets 10.7K Tweet impressions 4.1M

Apr 2019 Summary Tweets 8,676 Tweet impressions 4.44M

Mar 2019 Summary Tweets 8,914 Tweet impressions 2.99M

Feb 2019 Summary Tweet impressions 2.44M

Jan 2019 Summary Tweet impressions 3.66M

Dec 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 2.89M

Nov 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 3.71M

Oct 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 2.59M

Sep 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 2.64M

Aug 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 3.05M

Jul 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 2.83M

Jun 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 2.43M

May 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 2.61M

Apr 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 3.1M

Mar 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 2.86M

Feb 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 2.76M

Jan 2018 Summary Tweet impressions 3.28M

Dec 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 2.85M

Nov 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 3.47M

Oct 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 5.06M

Sep 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 12.7M

Aug 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 5.01M

Jul 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 7.95M

Jun 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 6.76M

May 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 6.81M

Apr 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 5.23M

Mar 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 4.88M

Feb 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 4.27M

Jan 2017 Summary Tweet impressions 7.06M

Dec 2016 Summary Tweet impressions 3.92M

Nov 2016 Summary Tweet impressions 15.7M

Oct 2016 Summary Tweet impressions 15.7M

As can be seen above, the peak was around the time of the last US election (latest? Last ever?). Back then we also closely covered the EPO scandals and people interacted a lot more about it over Twitter. There was an actual discussion back then. Nowadays? Hardly...

"Those aren't services but for-profit companies with a political agenda."It certainly feels (and has felt for a number of years) like Twitter is stagnating. Whatever benefit or appeal it used to have (like using one's software of choice to access the data) is mostly gone by now. We used to have a real-time IRC timeline for Twitter; this all ended when APIs were withdrawn (after about a decade), leaving us with little access to the underlying communications. The lesson of the whole story? Those aren't services but for-profit companies with a political agenda. There's absolutely nothing social about them except social control or social engineering. ⬆