After recently reading about the memos from supporters of Florida governor/repugnant pudding sucker Ron DeSantis, advising him on strategy for the upcoming Republican debate (“defend Trump,” “show emotion”), I just couldn’t resist.
I simply had to ignore my own advice, go to Ronnie’s Twitter – I mean, X – profile, and ridicule his sad, sorry ass publicly.
Except … when I got there, I saw something so shocking, so disgusting, it stopped me dead in my tracks.
There it was, in the upper-right corner of his profile.
According to toxic Twitter – I mean, X -- I was following Ron DeSantis!
What the hell?
Even my casual followers know I would never, ever follow that smug, high-heel-loving, sexist, homophobic, racist asshole. Not in a million years. Not for a million bucks.
And yet there it was. Somehow, someone at toxic Twitter – I mean X – had marked me as a follower of Mr. Don’t Say Gay.
Frankly, methinks that is the last straw. It’s time to at least lock up my Twitter account, if not delete it forever.
After all, this isn’t the first issue I’ve had with the cesspool that Twitter has become.
Lately, whenever I would tweet anything critical of the GOP from my phone, I’d immediately get a prompt from X, telling me that it was unable to deliver said tweet. And no matter how many times I’d hit “resend,” it simply would not get posted.
Curious. It’s almost as if someone at X is protecting the oh-so-delicate feelings of conservative snowflakes, isn’t it?
I’ve also clearly been “shadow banned” on the site. In other words, I can tweet all day long. But nobody sees my tweets.
How else could one explain why my tweets get no reactions, no responses, except from the same one or two people? I can participate in endless “Writers Lifts,” sharing and promoting other authors, and … crickets.
It’s not surprising. After all, Mr. Musk admitted the platform shadow-bans customers he doesn’t like, and that his engineers “aren’t quite sure” how to undo it. Or at least he claims.
After booting me off the site more than once during the past several years for mouthing off to Trump and his merry band of misfits, shadow-banning may be X’s way of keeping me in check ... ?
But then, how does one explain the right-wing zealots (whom I don’t follow) who show up in my feed occasionally, spewing their right-wing bullshit? They haven’t tagged me in their tweet. So why are they there? Why am I seeing their nonsense?
I can’t find an explanation for that one.
The Washington Post also recently disclosed that X “throttles” traffic to sites that Musk personally dislikes, or that have been critical of his disastrous takeover of the platform.
So, if you click on a link to, say, the New York Times, or Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, or Substack – expect a five-second delay before you connect to that site.
Click on a Fox News link, and there’s no delay at all.
Curious-er and curious-er.
Musk claims they are “working” to end such delays – but honestly, at this point, can we believe a single god-damned word that comes out of Musk’s mouth?
Musk also recently announced he’s getting rid of the “block” feature on X. He believes that just “muting” a person should be enough. That news is sure to delight stalkers, vengeful exes, trolls, and bullies all around the world, and make X even more toxic than it already is!
And boy, has it become toxic! Too many fake accounts, too many trolls, too much hate speech & bullying, and far too little moderation.
The blue-mark fiasco. Mass layoffs. Public arguments between Musk and his ex-employees. The childish feud between Musk and Zuckerberg. (Mark, you do know he had no intention of ever facing you in a ring, right?)
Is it any wonder that advertisers are abandoning the platform in droves? Who can blame them? It all leaves a shitty taste in the mouth.
(And don't get me started on Musk's pro-Russia stance and his interference with Ukraine's war against its invaders. Google it.)
So yeah, I think I’m done, too.
So, do I delete my account outright, or simply lock it?
Alas, Twitter’s algorithm is so broken that locking an account actually increases and improves engagement! Seriously! Musk explains it as “some issues with the system.” But honestly, how fucked up can X be for that to happen?
So, it looks like deleting my X account outright is the way to go.
Except even that is not without risk, either. Musk plans to allow new users to adopt handles of closed accounts. Do I really want to risk someone coming along, claiming to be “IamLeonAcord”?
I’ll risk it.
Account deleted!
Man, I feel like I just took a shower.
Hope to see you over on Threads!
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Burgeoning curmudgeon (or is that queer-mudgeon?) Leon Acord takes on current events (MAGA, cancel culture), modern-day life (precocious parents, technology), pop culture (theatre critics, closeted actors), and more in Expletives Not Deleted, his new collection of bitchy yet bubbly essays, all written in the same acerbic voice that made his memoir SUB-LEBRITY a five-star Amazon bestseller.
Buy it HERE