On leaving Twitter
In spite of enjoying being a ‘fly on the wall’ of Twitter for quite a number of years, I recently decided that I just must quit.
I had to leave Twitter because I cannot see how it can be free of the many vested interests of its new owner. If it has been evolving as the world’s ‘town square’ then I have to ask myself: why should any individual be allowed to own our town square? I believe that the world should be run by those elected by their constituents after voting in fair and honest democratic elections.
I joined Twitter, to satisfy my curiosity - to explore how it worked and whether it had any value to me. Initially, I followed just one Australian politician (my local Federal member, Barnaby Joyce) and one journalist (Annabelle Crabb of the ABC). [Disclaimer: following anyone does NOT mean I endorse them!].
It was fascinating to see how frequently each tweeted over different phases of their Twitter presences. Early in my twitter phase, Barnaby, as a senior member of the government, was promoting his achievements on a regular basis with the aid of his then social media advisor who later became his partner and mother of two of their children. After becoming politically tarnished - at least in the eyes of the media - the frequency of his tweets declined substantially with each tweet being mocked by an increasingly bold Twitter audience.
Annabelle, on the other hand, was a very frequent tweeter as she sought to grow her audience and that of her employer, the ABC, which she promoted feverishly. The last time I looked, she had some 400,000 followers which is quite an endorsement of the capacity of a platform such as Twitter to grow one’s sphere of influence. I appreciated it when she posted links to her ABC political commentary pieces which I usually found to be thoughtful, clever and insightful.
Tweeting personal indulgences was something that seemed to me to be extraordinary. It was somewhat understandable to me when our former PM, Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm), tweeted a sad eulogy to his family’s favourite pooch. But, when Annabelle used Twitter to acknowledge an unknown person who had been kind to her child at school, I wondered out loud about the benefit of this to her many followers!
I realise there are many who just ‘don’t do social media’ and have never explored Twitter. For those readers, here is a glimpse of a just a few of the many gems I enjoyed discovering while I was on Twitter:
The many clever ‘one-liners’ penned by one-time marketing guru Phillip Adams (@PhillipAdams_1) (ABC and Newscorp) who tweeted “Thank God I’m an Atheist”
Trusted advice about the medical profession, Covid-19 and other viral infections from Nobel laureate Prof Peter Doherty (@ProfPCDoherty) and
John Menadue’s links to his public policy journal ‘Pearls and Irritations’ (@johnmenadue)
It was obvious from some Tweeters, that having a large number of followers was held in high regard as they let the ‘twittersphere’ know that some odometer reading of follower numbers had been reached. One wonders if there is a link between the number of followers and a Tweeter’s level of hubris.
Tweeters with small numbers of followers are regularly scorned by those who have high profiles. But I didn’t mind - I found it fascinating to observe as the number of tweets I read expanded to a wide range of tweeters, no doubt assisted by some sort of AI operating in the background.
I rarely tweeted and accumulated virtually no followers. My profile noted that I am ‘anti-anonymity’ and so I chose to use my real name as my handle. My insignificance on Twitter was such that I think I only received one or two ‘likes’ of any of my rare twitter comments; one of these was from @MichaelPascoe01 - in my opinion, a respected Tweeter - which I appreciated as a little ‘badge of honour’!
My favourite part was having a seat ‘inside the tent’ of so-called influencers - especially journalists and politicians - and seeing the interchanges about current events in real time from these two sectors who aspire to influence and/or wield power.
Some weeks after ‘jumping ship’ I find that I do miss Twitter. But, I have gained at least an hour a day to do other productive things without lending my tacit support to an unelected rich person who is clearly using the platform to further his own interests.
If I find another platform offering a reasonable approximation of a ‘town square’ I will probably join up so I can continue as an interested observer of topical world discourse.
I will be even more likely to join a social media platform if it excludes anonymous voices. Yes, I can see why anonymity may be a requirement of websites offering reporting mechanisms for ‘whistle blowers’ or those fighting corruption but, in general, public discourse is more valuable when it is not anonymous.
So I wonder if a trustworthy ‘town square’ social platform might now evolve? I have a little hope and optimism that it will, given the success of Wikipedia in becoming a trusted source of shared information governed mostly by dedicated volunteer citizens around the planet.