With the announcement yesterday that the wannabe internet edgelord Elon Musk has made a successful bid to outright purchase Twitter (this coming even after the board of directors adopted a “poison pill” policy with regards to the man) I am, naturally, debating my further involvement with and usage of the social media platform.
Let’s be clear — this isn’t at all related to his wanting to “open” the platform back up for “free speech” (which translates into outright shitlords being able to say whatever garbage they want, be they racists, misogynist, or just typical absurdly right wing) — no, this is a matter of personal principle in that I refuse in all capacity to support anything connected to Elon Musk in any direct way. To say I hate the man and everything about him would be an understatement; that, however, is an article which is long overdue. but it suffices to say I find the man to be, overall, a negative presence in everything he is involved in. None of his ideas are original and those concepts and projects that do work out (like the Falcon 9 and SpaceX in general) aren’t his work alone — he just pays the bills, its thousands of other people accomplishing the actual work, with him taking the credit just like every other “big business” leader out there, only Musk has, for some reason, built up what amounts to a cult around him, as opposed to others like Bezos who seem to be hated in general. It’s an odd dichotomy, to say the least.
This isn’t to ignore that honestly, on a whole, Twitter is a shitty place. I rarely enjoy my time on it, mainly using it to share my blog posts and occasionally vent or make an observation about something my followers may like. It’s an absolutely terrible platform for any kind of actual discourse and yet people think that any and every disagreement on the site needs to turn into a debate where, in the ultimate irony, the more you say the worse off the opposition seems to treat your response, regardless of how much it takes to explain and back up a premise; actual logic goes to Twitter to die, and it’s fucking idiotic.
Indeed, in the past 6 months or more I’ve barely used the platform, or most social media in general, shying away from it in favor of trying to focus on this website and my many other projects. So far has been so good, but at this stage, with the future of twitter uncertain, I don’t totally know what I will do by this time next year.
For now, I’m going to stay the course but be very reserved, and prepare a contingency to just abandon the site outright. I’m fine with doing that, but I don’t want to jump the gun prematurely. Instead, it would be best to take a wait and see approach, if the purchase even completes, and from there distance myself as need be.
Twitter is already shit, don’t get me wrong, but I feel it likely will become worse with this purchase; a now privatized free-for-all of every kind that will ruin what little value the site still had for me. When you add that into the mix of me already not wanting to be connected to anything directly related to Musk, it’s a serious lose-lose.
If anyone needs me, I’ll be on the SDF Mastodon instance.
Also, I need to lay off the coffee. >_>