No Prompt
So today I was reminded of the importance of owning your own website over relying on social media for your primary presence.
I stopped updating my Twitter feed in November after a certain announcement and have quietly scrubbed it from my website. I didn’t delete my account since I thought there was a chance things could get better. I left a tweet guiding people to my Linktr.ee so they could find my other social media presences.
As of this morning, I discovered I was now in violation of Twitter’s new policy (which has since disappeared) regarding “preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms.” There is currently a poll up asking if such a policy should be made, which is 14.2% for yes and 85.2% no as of when I wrote this post. Do I think for a moment that Elon Musk will abide by this poll? No. He will use it to justify whatever choice he makes. There are also legal issues about European Union requirements, but I don’t have a firm enough grasp on them to understand. Upshot is that I deleted the Linktr.ee tweet and put.a similar list on my personal site. Which I’m sure will eventually be determined to be in violation because the powers that be will say that’s the primary reason my site exists.
This isn’t the first time I’ve left a platform. I had a LiveJournal back in the day before I began my professional writing. And I left it when it went through a series of acquisitions and I was required to agree to a TOS in a language I can not speak. I missed out on the collapse of MySpace. I fully expect that someday I will move to other social media. Platforms, but I’m going to make sure that this will be the central location for all my information.
I too pretty much boogied out of Twitter back a few months ago. I’ve been missing it, that’s for sure, but the bird site has gone to hell since Phony Stark took it over.