if you're still active on twitter - stop

[solarbird]

QAnon is being brought back to Twitter, at scale. Fascists at 8kun (not 8chan, but one of the spinoffs) are lathering themselves over the opportunity to recruit, boosted by someone - Elon Musk - they see as being on their side.

Leave Twitter. Seriously. Now. Staying there only keeps interaction numbers up and tells advertisers it's okay to stay.

Leave.

Now.

Comments

[mme_n_b]

Look, you're the one that keeps posting links to Twitter. I only got an account to read those in the first place, and deleting it requires figuring out which password I used (so, 10-ish minutes of work). I don't really see the benefit of "leaving" as opposed to "not posting", and there are drawbacks, one of which is that the links you post will become harder to follow.

[solarbird]

I do?

This link is to Vice. I have linked to twitter a couple of times in the last week, for purposes of providing evidence, so I suppose that counts. Lately, I'm moving towards linking to Mastodon and/or screenshots.

Also, I have been using shorthand, because most people I think have had decent context, but perhaps less so here. This is what I've done:

1. Deleted all apps. That's a trackable number.
2. Logged out of all accounts on all machines except for my primary account on one (1) device. Also a trackable number.
3. I check in roughly daily for intel purposes. I don't post, except to give another set of reasons for people to leave. VERY trackable numbers.
4. When asked, I've specifically said "Don't delete your account, but do the above."

If you want to get technical, advertisers have to see impressions and activity bottom out. I'll be better about linking secondary sources (screencaps) in future specifically to further that goal. It's just that posting images here is kind of a pain in the ass.

But if you're calling me on not being rigourous enough about doing that, you are correct, and I will adjust henceforth.

[mme_n_b]

You do. You are one of the two people in my daily reading that does.
My intent was not to call you, but to understand what it is you're asking for, because it sounded like "don't read the stuff I link to", which makes no sense.
So, thank you for the list, it helps. Since I have no app and am not logged in on any other machine, and don't check it unless I see a link the effect should be the same as deleting the account.

[vostoklake]

There is one gentleman who seems to be attempting to crash the birdsite's servers as quickly as possible by uploading huge full-def video files

Counterargument from Dr Johnathan Flowers

[vostoklake]

"For Black Twitter, a Twitter migration is simply unlikely because other sites don’t have the affordances that enable the formation of a community like Black Twitter...for disability Twitter, a migration irreparably damages these networks because on disability Twitter each user functions as a specific kind of node, not just through their experience with disability, but through the ways that they use the retweet and quote tweet function to circulate information and to circulate narratives about disability...

"Musk didn’t actually have to change anything to produce this influx of violence against marginalized subjects and then drive people off the platform. This is the other thing that I’m observing about the Twitter migration. It is in response to something that has not happened yet. It is in response to a perceived fear, and that perceived fear has created an opening for these belligerent actors to drive people off of the website, to drive people out of what is increasingly treated as a digital public commons, and to cede that commons to these kind of belligerent actors, and in doing so, emboldens them, at least in my view, in other ways offline. If they can force you out of a digital commons online, that gives them a good reason to assume that they can force you out of a commons in public using the same tactics...

"...if we look at everything that Elon Musk is doing with Twitter, there is no reason for Black Twitter to migrate to Mastodon. We endure things like Elon Musk all the time, and Black Twitter can endure on Twitter regardless of many of the changes, although some may affect the ways that we build community, the verification thing, for example."

https://techpolicy.press/the-whiteness-of-mastodon/

Re: Counterargument from Dr Johnathan Flowers

[solarbird]

In my obviously limited observations, Black Mastodon has different opinions - newer Black arrivals seem more likely to agree more with Dr. Flowers, but it's not universal there either.

Queer and Jewish mastodon, by contrast, have very definitely different opinions. The anti-queer and anti-Jewish hate on Twitter have ramped up very sharply.

I mean, even as little as I've used Twitter since Elon took over, I've personally seen shit.

That is not why I'm urging people to leave, however. I'm urging people to leave because it is going to become not just a disinformation fountain and hate propaganda machine - assuming Mr. Musk delivers on his stated promises, of course - I have no doubt whatever that the machine will be further rigged to promote these views, both by him personally (he's stated repeatedly that people who disagree with him are not real accounts, just bots) and through the various bad-faith actors he is allowing to run ramptant.

I stayed as long as I did in no small part because I was constantly hammering on their algorithm as I understood it. That's no longer going to be possible.

Further, Elon Musk hates queers and in particular hates transgendered and genderqueer people - enough so that he was willing to drive his own daughter out of his life.

I know these people, and I know how this goes.

And that's why I keep saying - it's time to leave.