You Have the Power
If you are on Twitter, and are uncomfortable with it being owned by Elon Musk, why are you still on Twitter then?
Twitter is nothing without you. You are the customer, and you are the product. Everyone is. Believe it or not, you only need a Twitter account so that you can be the product. Being a customer is 100% free.
You don’t need a Twitter account to read people’s tweets from their timeline. All you need is a web browser and know how to type stuff into the search window.
You need a Twitter account to make Twitter valuable to others. To make it valuable to Elon. I’m going indulge my Ego, and quote myself:
“Twitter is not a place; never was. This could be Twitter. Twitter is where our people stand. Even now, right now, those people need your help.”
Deliberately misquoting Odin from Thor-Ragnarok.
A lot of people defend Twitter as a place worth protecting. Which misses the point of an online community. That community exists wherever we can find a home.
And yeah, Twitter is experiencing Ragnarok. And Elon is Hela without the charm and personality.
There are many, many people that say we should cease ceding control to egotistical billionaires. And I say, they’re right! We should!
So FUCKING DO IT ALREADY.
Facebook doesn’t exist without you. Why are you giving Zuckerberg your life’s story for free?
TikTok doesn’t exist without you. Why are you giving the Chinese Government so much data?
Twitter doesn’t exist without you. Why are you giving your thoughts and life to Elon Musk?
This is the Internet. And as much as Zuckerberg, Musk and others have tried to build walled gardens to keep us penned in, the underlying foundational principles are still there. We don’t need them, and we can build our own alternatives.
Mastodon and Counter.Social are two user-built communities. Not owned by tech oligarchs with fancy headquarters. Online communities created and managed by tech savvy users.
You could be a Mastodon admin. You could host your own server. You think Counter.Social looks like a first year Uni student’s Dorm Room and there is no way you will use it? Build your own. You have the power. You have the value. You are the product.
You cannot build your own Twitter. That’s closed source proprietary product. But you could build your own Mastodon based social media site.
And that’s the essential difference. Mastodon and Counter.Social are user driven social media platforms that don’t exist to profit corporations, feed government databanks and stroke billionaire’s egos. If you don’t want to build your own, use these gifts these people like us are creating for us. They’re rough and unpolished but they’re community driven. The difference between a Farmer’s Market and Walmart grocery.
I get the appeal of professional well-funded corporate sites. But they need us more than we need them. They can’t exist without us.
But we can and do exist without them. Our lives have meaning without Twitter, Twitter has no meaning without its users.
Boycotting billionaire social media maniacs is easier than boycotting a large grocery chain. The large grocery chain only wants your money. The billionaire social media maniac wants you and all that you are.
Don’t sell yourself so cheaply. These billionaires think enough of you to feed off your personality.
Don’t give in to them.
I was @Catelli2oh on Twitter.com
I am Catelli on Mastodon.
