So I’ve been noticing Twitter is way more fash in the last year etc. since Elon took over (probably an understatement on the fascist stuff). And there’s a shit ton of bots being run by foreign and domestic governments, and accounts run by people paid for by foreign and domestic governments. I recently saw a post of a link to an Israeli government fee sheet for people posting on behalf of the government that outlines how they are paid for their actions online, including being paid for engagement with their posts, even negative engagement. So it feels less and less like being part of any kind of reality to be on sites like that. I find this similar on Facebook, but have family members on Facebook so that’s keeping me there for now. It’s probably similar on all social media across the board really.

But Twitter/X was ESPECIALLY clearly destructive in terms of manufacturing a reality we really aren’t living in, making things stressful for me as a trans person also. And the good accounts have mostly left Twitter/X. And really it just felt like staying there was giving the site some kind of legitimacy when really there’s so much bullshit there. I know there’s some good people still trying to raise awareness about important issues. But the fact that I had to wade through so many dubious accounts and bots just didn’t make it worthwhile to stay. It felt like being in the Matrix! What’s even real there? Never mind the AI and shit, just so much dubious content. And it just gave me anxiety to be there.

I’m still grappling with my Facebook addiction, so if you have any tips for how to reduce my time there I would love to hear it. I’m not ready to completely delete it, but if I could just be on there for a certain amount of time a day that would be better.

Anyway, I am not judging people who stay on sites like Twitter, but just think critically about the accounts you engage with and who is benefiting from your outrage or anxiety when interacting there. They really are just propaganda sites now and society is being manipulated by using them. So I’m out.