Last post on Xitter

I myself left Xitter a while ago, deleting both my accounts.

I wish I'd been as eloquent as George Monbiot. This is his last post on that platform:

Here, broken down into a thread, is a copy of my last post on X. 

1. This is my farewell post. I am not deleting this account, as I don’t want to lose the archive, and I don’t want my name taken by imposters. But, for as long as Musk owns the platform, I’ll no longer use it.

2. Since Elon Musk bought X, he has transformed it from one on which millions could converse as equals into his personal megaphone. Now the world’s richest man uses it to wage his class war, transferring blame for the ills of capitalism onto vulnerable minorities ....

3. .... boosting the grimmest and most antisocial accounts while suppressing the humane voices with whom he disagrees. He has used X not only to subvert the election for the US presidency, but to create a role for himself in US politics ...

4. .... which, though he has never stood for election and would not be eligible, grants him immense power over the citizens of that nation. X has been used as a tool to help replace democracy with oligarchy. Musk claimed, on purchasing the platform, to be a “free speech absolutist”.

5. He is in fact a prolific censor, suspending dissenting accounts and using lawsuits to shut down free speech, while employing an algorithm to increase the reach of his own posts 1,000-fold. He cannot abide a level playing field.

6. He has permitted or encouraged the growth of a ghost army of bots and trolls to degrade the experience of all who disagree with him. Their task is not just to abuse opponents but, perhaps more importantly, to drown intelligent conversation with a tsunami of stupidity.

7. They respond to data with denial, expertise with execration, insight with insult and thinking with thuggery. They suck the meaning out of everything. The stupidity trends in one direction: in the service of economic power. It is a weapon used to suppress the possibility of a better world.

8. Many years ago, when I lived in Brazil, I learnt that the military dictatorship had actively sought to suppress educational levels in schools, as it saw a well-informed population as a political threat. A confused, distracted and ignorant population is easy to manipulate.

9. Now this counter-educational model is being rolled out worldwide, and Elon Musk is its primary sponsor. I stayed on X long after I first considered leaving, as I believed it was wrong to cede the ground to an oligarch and his minions.

10. But I came to see that those of us who do not subscribe to Musk’s grim project are being used as groundbait: stimulating the feeding frenzy of 15-minute, 24-hour hate that now powers X. Brute force – the unmediated power of money – has beaten humanity, intelligence, humour and democracy.

11. On Bluesky I can be the person I want to be, a better person than I am on X, where it is almost impossible not to get dragged into the mud. I feel I can be understood because I am not confronting a deliberate effort to misunderstand me. So I can speak more quietly.

12. There's no guarantee that Bluesky will not also one day be monetised by its owners or captured by self-serving billionaires. But for now it's a place in which interesting conversations can be had, kindness can be shown to strangers and a better world can be imagined. I hope to see you there.

Just so.