Now that Twitter’s been bought by someone with a fifteen-year-old white suburban teen’s concept of free speech and who doesn’t understand how content moderation actually enables free speech, there are a number of people who are considering leaving the platform, in that same way when Donald Trump took the presidency on that bleak day in 2016.
To those people, I say: STAY.
Twitter is about to turn into Reddit from its freewheeling days of the early 2010s, when free speech absolutism was the rule of the day, and what did we get for it? A speaker’s corner for terrible people, a platform for harassment campaigns, a gathering place for bigots, and the birthing ground for Gamergate and the alt-right culture that it enabled.
In the face of this, the best thing to do is to STAY, be ready, organize, and follow the advice of Canadian author Dennis Leigh, which Scottish writer and artist Alasdair Gray adapted:
“Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.”
Or, since this is a site aimed at techies, here are some encouraging words from David “The 10th Doctor” Tennant said shortly after the UK vote for Brexit:
Here’s a transcript:
It’s all gonna be okay. Trust me, I’m a doctor.
But — it’s up to us to make it okay.
It’s time to be positively rebellious and rebelliously positive. As long as we stand up for what we believe in, don’t give in to anger or violence, look out for the little guy, keep an eye on the big guys, refuse to keep our mouths shut, and just generally try not to be dicks, everything little thing is gonna be all right.