Thread by @jayfarnold

I’m worried. I have also been shadowbanned. So please RT if you can see this.

THREAD:

In this uneasy political environment, I feel like everything is wrong with Twitter these days.

I worry that people are tweeting and retweeting within a bubble, talking to vastly the same audience. I worry that people are spending hours tweeting when they could be canvassing, registering voters, going to phone banks or door to door.

I worry that people are simply spitting at each other with opposing points of view. I worry that instead of constructive debate, we largely have disagreements, muting and blocking.

I worry that twitter has turned into a numbers game. That the numbers represent quantity and not quality. That more is somehow better. I worry that people embrace upside down ratios.

Even a 1:1 ratio is problematic. It’s simply not possible to read and absorb what thousands of people on one’s timeline are saying. I worry that people feel tweeting about policy (in most cases) is meaningful, cathartic maybe, meaningful? I don't think so.

I worry that twitter is not thoughtful. Allowing bots and shadowbanning people at will. I worry that bots are spreading propaganda and Twitter doesn’t care because they need the numbers to sustain a platform whose growth is slowing.

I worry that Twitter does not consistently enforce their TOS. And I worry that Twitter doesn’t offer verification to those who are willing, and that the vast majority of twitter is opaque.

Is Twitter effective at some things? Absolutely. Boycotts have been effective and some fund raising has been effective, but that’s a small fraction of what’s going on here. Twitter has done nothing to protect this environment and make it safer.

I worry that Twitter is based 100% on advertising revenue and is beholden to those advertisers for profit which makes them compromised. I worry that Twitter hasn’t tested a subscription model to reduce reliance on advertisers.

I worry that twitter has become a platform for even the worst of people, and that governing and firing people is commonplace. Cold. Heartless. Cowardly. I worry that Twitter facilitates fake news, propaganda and people believe it.

I worry that a daily visit to Twitter to converse has become a stressful playground for hate. I don’t see a lot of love, it’s here, just harder to find. I worry that everyone here races for a better joke when we're suffering.

I worry that Twitter is how we will learn of war, because it’s a passive aggressive environment that facilitates cowardly deeds. I worry that Twitter is the source of my worry, and many others, too.

I’m not sure what we can do. But I would encourage people to reconsider the numbers game. Follow less people, engage and love only the number of followings you can handle. I truly believe it will help.

Making a real difference with a smaller number of people might be more meaningful than retweeting to thousands in the same bubble. It seems we have no leverage with Twitter, if you've got ideas, please share, because clearly, I'm worried. And I think others are too. #peace #love