5 years ago, I started out on the Twitter social media platform.
At this time, I was officially too young to be using this website, which eventually came back to bite me when the European Union (EU) introduced the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which left me several weeks without a Twitter profile, until I reactivated it by using a friend’s passport to circumvent Twitter’s choice to disable the accounts of everyone who created their accounts before being 13 years old, which has be done by many young people, as it turned out.
Still, there were worse moments for me when it comes to Twitter, with me getting attacked by pro-Russian trolls back in 2015, and previously getting suspended 3 times, with today being my 4th time. This is also where my Twitter journey is likely to end, as I’m not going to fight Twitter’s decision. Don’t get me wrong, I am certain I did nothing wrong, as I literally only logged on still to retweet the messages of the UK-based ChildAid. No, I am not fighting it because I have given up on Twitter a long time ago by now, and I’m just too tired to fight Twitter over their decision. They’re dying already, and I can only wish them farewell, as they are only helping their own demise to be swifter.
The thing about Twitter is that they don’t actually seem to care about their own platform, at least, not anymore. In the recent years, they have supposedly started fighting bots, for example. Still, their fight is all but successful, as bots remain and I have enough proof of this, seeing as I used bots myself before they were no longer allowed by Twitter’s rules and terms. As let’s take a moment to be aware of this, for quite a long time Twitter had nothing in either their rules or terms that prevented the usage of bots. That being said, quite some of the bots I had still remain, forgotten in the abyss of Twitter’s many inactive accounts. Which is actually the second way to notice that Twitter doesn’t care about its platform, the fact that they’re not deleting inactive accounts to free prominent usernames. Unlike removing suspended accounts, which could cause someone to impersonate a banned user, deleting inactive accounts would have a huge benefit to Twitter. No longer the need to add “real”, “true” or whatever to your username. Instagram does this, they delete inactive accounts, but Twitter… Well, I guess the message should be clear, right?
And then there are also the well-known problems of Twitter, like all the trolls and hatred. Since I started using Twitter back in 2014, I have seen more people leave than join. It’s not without a reason that when the Facebook breach happened and afterwards many people stopped using Facebook, I didn’t do so. Sure, Facebook doesn’t care about privacy, but seriously, does Twitter? Anyone who has ever reported something on Twitter knows that it can take literally months before Twitter even responds, and I sincerely wish I was joking about this. A friend’s personal information was shared on Twitter in 2015, but it took until 2017 before Twitter deleted it. It’s that nobody truly cared about his private information, but that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of bad things could have happened. And seriously, it should take literally minutes for Twitter to be able to delete this. Which probably gives us the most notable way to show that Twitter doesn’t care about its platform, by them apparently not even having enough manpower. Honestly, those companies using Indian callcentres can be annoying at times, but it’s at least not as bad as not getting helped at all…
Anyhow, today I am joining the huge amount of Ukrainians who have been suspended by Twitter. I bid Twitter farewell and good luck, as siding with Russia might seem good at first, but it will be your downfall. At least it’s obvious why Trump’s favorite social media platform is Twitter…
