Goodbye, Twitter

When I first joined Twitter in 2007 it didn't seem interesting at all to me. But when I came back to try it again a year later it had become interesting enough for me to stay. It were the wild early days of social media. Everybody was just experimenting. I got to interact with celebrities and meet people with the same interests as me. Over time it grew to an amazing source of knowledge and good origin of personal connections. It was great and I really can't thank the people, who worked there, enough. You all made so much possible for me and the world. I'll always be grateful for that.

Of course it became frustrating sometimes as more people joined, the political climate got more difficult and some bad people tried to influence other people. Changes like an algorithmic timeline might have made it more appealing to the masses, but it made people chase engagement trough conflicts. Sometimes it was difficult. In total it continued to be a valuable place for me though and there was still good stuff happening there.

All of this changed dramatically in the last months. A bad human being with too much money decided to buy Twitter. He didn't get how it worked. He fired most of the people working there and treated them badly. He removed all sort of safeguards. He allowed many bad people to come back there. He promoted misinformation and hate wherever he could. It became just a cesspool.

So I had to leave. I feel sad about that because of all the great things Twitter enabled for me. It isn't dead yet - although you can see parts of its infrastructure crumbling. It just isn't a place anymore where it's nice to be.