On Leaving Twitter

Why I Got Off Twitter

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. This is a very quick episode about Twitter. And a question I've gotten about it, but I've been saving it. John, why aren't you on it?

Why did you get off Twitter, for those who know I was on it for a few years? And should we get off Twitter, right? That's another question that I want to address in this. And the answer to the second question is I don't know.

Depending on who you are and what you use it for, maybe you should stay on. But I think for most of us, my answer is going to be, yeah, probably get off. And I'm not legalistic about it. I'm not saying you have to.

I'm not saying you can't be salt and light on Twitter as a Christian. But I'm just saying, I've noticed some trends that concern me. And that's what I want to talk about today. So number one, what is Twitter?

Twitter Is Not a Level Playing Field

That's a question I want to ask. I think I lied to myself internally about this. I thought, well, Twitter is a level playing field in which different ideas are brought to the marketplace of ideas, and they wage war against one another.

And you're attempting to expose people to ideas. You know, it's like back in the ancient Greek Greco-Roman days when the philosophers would come out to the public square. Or it's like the pubs of Scotland and Ireland and Britain when people would go to discuss the day's events.

And no, no, it's not. No, it's not those things. In fact, it's more like a playground where the bullies have advantage. And it's run by bigger bullies. And that's what I realized. It's not a level playing field.

In fact, 2019, Pew Research, before the purges, 10 of the users create 80 of the tweets. So you have a very small number of people creating the tweets. Now, who are those people? Well, I'd like to submit to you that they're generally people who are going to be more brash, brazen on the conservative side.

They're the ones that own the left on the leftist side. They're the ones that really smear the conservatives. And 36 of the users in 2019 were Democrats. US population at that time was 30 Democrats.

21 were Republicans. 26 of the population is Republican. So there was already leftist leanings on Twitter. That was in 2019. I would not be surprised today after the purges if it was like three quarters of the people were on the left or more.

I would not be shocked. Twitter is overwhelmingly leftist. I've called it a leftist echo chamber. I believe that's mostly what it is. And that has significance for what it does to us as we're on it. Do we cater to the crowd because we want likes and retweets and attention?

So it's not a great place if you want a level playing field. That's number one. It's not a level playing field. Just admit that. So realize if you're going to war on Twitter, you got your hands tied behind your back and just be okay with that.

Watch the Senate Judiciary, or sorry, Senate testimony that Jack Dorsey gave and look at him, look at what he says, and then think to yourself, do I want to be in that guy's world where he controls the levers?

And if I build a big platform, he can just turn me off. He can make sure that some people don't see what I had to say. Is that what you want? You have to ask yourself that question. And if so, if you answer that in the affirmative, then fine.

I hope you're successful, but just realize that's what you're getting into. It's not a level playing field. Now, some people use Twitter for information. They don't get on there because they want to influence others.

It's that they want to be influenced because they think there's good news sources and they can get just the gist of it without having to read the whole articles. Now that's dangerous for one reason. If you're not reading the whole articles, you're often going to, or you can read clickbait and think it's true and it's not.

So Twitter is terrible for that. But something bigger than that, in my mind, 99 according to a study in 2020 of the political donations that could be tracked down from workers at Twitter, employees at Twitter, 99 of them were made to Democrats.

99%. Think about that. The levers are being controlled by people who are overwhelmingly on one political party represented by their ideas. Do you think that the flow of information that's controlled in some ways by them is going to be the diet you want in your own informational intake?

I would submit to you that probably not. There's better places to go. So make sure if you are going to Twitter for news, that's not your main source of news. Okay. Now I want to talk about a little bit what it did to me.

How Twitter Trains You to Play to the Crowd

I realized this about Twitter. It trains your mind to play to the crowd. And as the Overton window shifts to the left, which is exactly what's happening, conservatives are shifting with it. And I think Twitter helps with this.

It catalyzes that process. You are wanting and needing even, at least you feel that way, a dopamine hit from likes, from notifications, from retweets, from compliments. And when you don't get it, and when you see negative things, you can get awfully sensitive.

I noticed that in myself. That can happen with any social media, but with Twitter, it's one of the worst ones. In fact, if you watch the Social Dilemma or any of these interviews from people who have come out from big tech companies, they'll tell you that we designed it this way.

We want you to be addicted. We want that to be the first thing that you think about when you get up. And indeed there were mornings I would get up, I would grab my phone and I would be there another hour laying there checking Twitter.

Is that healthy? We turn our internet off at my home. Now I have to get up, turn on the internet, and then I'm already up. If I want to check anything on social media, I need barriers there because you know what?

I'm weak. That's just the truth. I'm not strong enough to handle that. And that was one of the reasons that I got off Twitter. There's, there's a weakness I had. I realized there was something in me that wanted the likes of others.

I would think through, is this tweet going to get a lot of likes? Is it going to get a lot of traction? How broad is the appeal of this tweet? How can I soften something that might get me in trouble? And when I was in trouble, I was tempted.

I'm going to go on my podcast and I'm going to talk about it. And sometimes that was the correct thing to do, but other times it was petty. Why talk about it? No one cares. But it got to me a little bit.

And that's the thing. Twitter can get to you. Same with other social media formats. Twitter's the worst though. Insults that you get on your notifications, those kinds of things. From people, you would never say the kinds of things perhaps you say on Twitter to others.

It kind of rewards people who are going to be more bully-like in their tactics. You would never say those things to others, but you'll say them on Twitter. That was one of the things I noticed too, was I was tempted to up the rhetoric.

It's very hard to be, and I do believe that you should be direct. I do believe you should call a spade a spade. But flamethrowing, bully tactics, name calling, no. And that's what I was realizing I was tempted to do on Twitter.

Shadow Banning and the Loss of Control

So I got off of there, partially for my own sanity and benefit, but the process was helped along because I was shadow banned. And I looked at a website that's supposed to tell you whether you're shadow banned.

It said I was, but I could just tell there was a drop-off when I started talking about certain things. And especially related to the election, especially related to COVID, I was not getting traction.

I used to get tons of likes, and I wasn't getting any. And I realized people weren't seeing my stuff. And it's because a lever was hit. Something happened upstream for me that caused others to be blocked from seeing my content.

And I realized I don't want to be on a platform that just does that. Now, what I ended up doing was I changed my Twitter handle, and I ended up just using it for some projects that I was part of with Last Stand Studios, just advertising some of those.

But you know what? They didn't get traction either on Twitter. So I'm like, I don't know that it's even worth it at this point. I don't use Twitter. I think I'm automatically logged into that particular account on my browser, probably.

But you can go to that particular Twitter account. I don't use it. It's not a way to get ahold of me. You could be waiting months, possibly. I will go on Twitter. Someone sends me a link and says, check this out.

But I'm not one to spend time on Twitter. And the reasons for that are what I just gave to you. Now, for those who do want to be on Twitter for being salt and light, this is my recommendation. If you really want to be on there, and you think it's helpful or beneficial, then that's fine.

Boundaries for Christians Who Stay on Twitter

And that's not a sin. Just make sure you got some boundaries set up. Limit the time you're on there. Make sure you're not checking your phone every five minutes, 15 minutes, hour, two hours. Make sure that you're...

I check it maybe what? Once, twice, three times, whatever it is, once every week. Just make sure that you keep to it. And if you can't keep to it, maybe you should get rid of it because it's controlling you.

You're not in control of it. So that is my spiel on Twitter. That's what I think about it. That hopefully answers the questions that some have had as to why I don't have a personal Twitter account. And I hope that there are other alternatives that keep popping up.

I think there have been some. I think Gab is an alternative. It doesn't mean I appreciate everything that's posted on Gab or anything, but at least there's, from what I can tell, the marketplace of ideas is open.

And that's all we're looking for. Getter, right? I'm on these other websites and the only one that seem of the alternatives that seems to have really made a big inroad is Gab at this point. I mean, the other ones seem that there's not many people on them, but I think more will pop up.

And I think it would be good to have a conservative mass exodus from Twitter. I thought it would have happened after Trump was kicked off, but it didn't. And, you know, Trump was one of these people in one way.

I mean, he probably did. He did use some bully tactics at times on Twitter. There's no doubt about it. The right's starting to be engaged in it, just like the left has been. Left is an expert at it, but the right's catching up, trying to at least.

They're never as good at it. But, you know, I didn't approve of everything Trump would tweet out. But the thing about Trump's use of Twitter that I saw that actually I appreciated was he would just put out, here it is.

He wouldn't get in these big, long spats with people, generally. I never saw it, at least. He didn't seem to be obsessed with what Twitter was saying. It wasn't shifting his view on anything. He wasn't changing what he was saying because of what Twitter would think, necessarily.

He was just, he was using Twitter. Twitter wasn't using him. And I think that's something you need to keep in mind. Is Twitter using you or are you using Twitter? You know, aside from the advertising money that they get from being able to advertise to you on Twitter, just realize they are getting that for you being on it.

They are also putting things in front of you. Advertisements, especially. But they're controlling, to some extent, what you see. They are able to engineer your mind, to some extent, by putting things in front of you.

And I just don't want to give them that control. So that's where I'm at with that. So hopefully that was helpful for some of you. God bless. More coming later in the week. That's just my direct answer to a direct question.

Bye now.