Frequent visitors may notice I removed links to my social media.
I am no longer on social media.
Years ago I would describe social media as fertile ground. Discussion, support, and sharing of ideas were commonplace.
In the last couple of years I’ve found social media has become a sinister place. A place of censorship, where creative thought is silenced and punished, and only certain people are given the platform to speak. A place unnecessarily hostile and negative no matter what the topic.
The main social medias have become matrixes in unto themselves.
Wake up, Neo.
You spend years performing by their rules, in pursuit of getting higher follower counts and exposure, only to have your account restricted unless you adhere to new rules, or throttled down while the system simply chooses to showcase a different demographic. If you resist, you get deplatformed and lose everything you’ve worked to build over that time.
This exact thing happened to me.
They deleted my twitter account of 8 years for HATE SPEECH.
My offending tweet; “Pineapple on pizza is a crime against humanity. Those folks have a chromosome off or something. Freaks!”
I shit you not, they flagged this tweet as Hate Speech and pulled down my account. An account that had tons of business communications, attachments in chat, and contacts established over 8 years.
They refused my request for review and argument that my tweet wasn’t hate speech. When I called and spoke to someone, they said my only recourse was to request a review through the twitter platform and wait for a response.
So my options were;
- a) Agree that my comment was Hate Speech.
- B) request another review.
A year later after requesting another review, my account was still disabled and I had never heard from anyone. I finally had enough.
This is the power of censorship these tech oligarchs wield.
// Strange that their priority isn’t deleting offending tweets, but getting a user to AGREE they committed a hate speech ‘crime.’ // Seriously, WTF is that about?
As a sci-fi writer, I’ve spent most of my life exploring the worst of humanity, taking narratives to their nightmarish ends. Perhaps, it’s this insight that allows me to see the horrible truth of what’s going on… and what’s coming.
What a shame that a country built on humanity’s best principles has turned it’s back on these very principles.
There are big social, cultural, political, economic elements here.
I’m not going to get into it. A conspiracy theory for another time 😉
This is as much a personal decision as it is a practical one. For some reason, all this year, I’ve felt a strong calling to spend more time in the real world, offline.
To focus back on my personal projects both writing related and non-writing related. (Of course I’m still working with my existing clients and accepting new ones as time permits; it is my profession after all.)
But as far as social media goes… so long, pal.
It’s been fun. Sort’a.
I’ll still be here on my personal website and Story To Script having faith that good people doing good things can still get by in this world without the “help” of the technocractic overlords.
I could be wrong.
Perhaps when you drop off social media you self-exile yourself to the phantom zone.
Only time will tell for sure, but so far, I’ve been enjoying the additional free time and less negativity tremendously.
(Of course, since I’m no longer on social media, if any of y’all want to mention me, or any of my articles, to a colleague or friend. No matter how it plays out, any exposure to new folks is welcome and most appreciated!)
I can’t help but wonder if communicating, or rather, attempting to communicate, with masses of people back and forth just goes against the natural order of how humans are suppose to form relationships and ultimately, help one another.
Because in the end, you can’t take anything with you except the peace and satisfaction of knowing you actually made a difference to someone.
Can you really do that when you’re tweeting to 200,000 mobile screens and everyone screams at each other?
Before I go, I want to stress that this decision isn’t a reaction to a failed attempt at building a fanbase on social media. Not at all.
While I’d certainly argue the algorithms haven’t been kind to me based on my personal likes and dislikes over the last couple of years, this isn’t a decision of spite and anger, rather, a step to reclaiming the power over my own life.
Think about how much time the average person spends on social media.
Now, multiply it by the hustle an independent contractor / creator puts forth.
These companies have far too much power, controlling how we are allowed to act and interact with one another.
Here’s a recent screen capture from a reddit group. I am in no way affiliated with them and don’t know anything about them.
But this popped up in my feed recently and so eloquently underscored my feelings and outlook, I figured I had to share.
Apparently, this long established group while trying to follow the rules set forth by Reddit, was told they are actually breaking the rules.
Now they are on the precipice of red tape, about to have their entire community deplatformed.
These companies telling us how we must live our not our friends. They do not promote open and transparent platforms, but a system that they control 100%. Changing and revising their rules to fit whatever agenda they have at the moment.
More and more each day, reducing our lives to the mundane tasks of appeasing the tech overlords.
It’s like starting every day at the DMV. Now that’s a version of Groundhog Day I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
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About the Author —
Newcomer or veteran writer, if you’re working on a project that needs commercial success, Nick urges to you read this intro article.
Nick Macari is a full-time freelance story consultant, developmental editor and writer, working primarily in the independent gaming and comic markets. His first published comic appeared on shelves via Diamond in the late 90’s. Today you can find his comic work on comixology, Amazon, and in select stores around the U.S.