Goodbye Twitter - you were useful for (quite) a while.
By Leo Gaggl
After getting rid of my Facebook account a long time ago, finally, I have decided to pull the plug on Twitter as well.
I have become increasingly wary of the changes of the platform as it seeks for a way to monetise it’s user-base. The timeline has increasingly become infested with annoying ads and no way of getting rid of them. Since Twitter effectively killed the whole app ecosystem with their changes to API rules and banning anything that became useful to a substantial number of people.
Another major annoyance has been Twitter’s insistence in seeing itself as a ‘media platform’. The last thing I need is another media consumption time-sink. The changes I.M.O. is completely misunderstanding their initial user base. While most ‘media’ people always complained about 140 characters, it served a purpose.
Since Twitter started messing with the timeline (letting some algorithm decide what I might find useful) I have been toying with the idea of letting go of my Twitter account.
The last straw was the last Australian federal election which really hit home what a toxic echo chamber this platform has become. Even though I have never followed any serving politician it was hard not to get drawn into some of the ‘discussions’ being a person interested in Agriculture, Environment & Energy policies and following a few accounts in those interest areas. I have better (more productive) things to do than being sucked into hyper-polarised #auspol threads (and frankly – when reading some of the replies – losing faith in humanity or getting annoyed about trolls/bots). Whilst this is more a reflection of the sad times we live in than it is on the Twitter platform itself, it is certainly being amplified by it. And Twitter is obviously not interested in doing anything about this.
Looking at the Brandwatch list of Twitter accounts with most followers (with the exception of Barack Obama probably) – a good illustration what’s wrong with our times.
Unlike Facebook it has been a lot harder decision to finally delete my account. Twitter has actually been useful for me for quite a long while (according to Twitter since Mar 15, 2008 at 1:53 PM). After a few months of finding the secret sauce that it’s all about who/what to follow Twitter has been a very valuable tool in picking up tools/trends/interesting reads for a long time.
I have never regretted the decision to delete Facebook (despite at the odd time being excluded from a FB-only event that might have been useful). And I am quite relaxed about nuking Twitter by now as well.
Looking forward to a lot more productive, calm & creative use of time. Onwards and upwards as they say!
For those who want to stay in touch, it shouldn’t be hard to find me. As for Twitter alternative I am giving Mastodon a bit of a try over at https://social.coop/@leogaggl – seems more purposeful, friendlier and less of a time-sink.