For the life of me, I cannot understand how anyone thinks that Twitter is a source of news. By the time things get Twitter, I already read it a day earlier somewhere else. Of course, I accepts that, as a global citizen, I'm familiar with many sources, and that might be why.

I have been on and off Twitter since 2010. I rejoined recently to see what Musk is doing. I finally found out why people liked it. They followed famous people and commented on their threads - that's it.

I joined Google Plus on day one. Within two years, I had 38,000 followers, but more than that, within a year, my posts would have up to 1,5 million reads within 24 hours, and that would happen 3 or 4 times a week. I wasn't rich or famous or anything else, but I had reach, and for a while there, I was one of the top voices on Google, and then I told a Google staff member that I didn't agree with his Libertarian views, and 24 hours later, my 'reach' was gone.

Twitter does the same thing. So do a number of writing sites and social media sites. As the Twitter Files have revealed, Twitter moderation amplified those people they liked, and de-amplified the voices of those they ddidn't.

More than that, if you weren't rich and famous, if you were just a voice in the wind, you could get banned or life banned for using the wrong word. Nor were the responses to your query answered by real people. The Twitter files reveals that they only responded personally to people who had a few hundred thousands followers. Anyone without that had no contact with customer service.

I have suspected this for years.

I didn't bother to join Mastodon because after Google Plus closed, I joined two decentralized sites. Doesn't work - not for me.

I've joined Post.New. Closest thing i've seen to Google Plus. More than that, when some 'voices' tried to tell me I shouldn't write things and accused me of being a this and a that, someone else added the owner's name to the conversation.

He promptly told me I could write what I liked, and the more controversial the better, and if anyone attacked me personally, as opposed to attacking me ideas, to flag that person immediately.

And that's the way it ought to be.

The abuse of moderation and the slow erosion of press freedom is of great concern. This is fascism. Twitter had it all - under perfect control., They controlled the narrative, and only the right realized it. Of course, people like me, on the left, were nobodies, and so nothing was said. We weren't powerful enough to expose what was happening.../