As the world turns away from Odeo\u2019s short messaging service (which became twttr, which became Twitter, which became X, which became a bonfire of vanity), countless former users are mass deleting their older tweets and either leaving the service or putting their account on a \u201chere but doing nothing\u201d basis to hold on to their name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As well as the descent of Twitter over the last year, November 15 saw a change in the terms and conditions, allowing third parties to use public data\u2014your old tweet\u2014 to train generative AI models. Given the terrible weight on one side of the scales, it\u2019s not a surprise that so many left the service and so many wiped their messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet I can\u2019t help but feel the loss of connections, emotions, and real life. So many things happened on Twitter. Sure, there are the big moments that history will record elsewhere, but the smaller moments that mean so much to smaller groups of people, be they communities around websites, local groups, or even close groups of friends, will have been lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it\u2019s not our fault. It\u2019s the fault of Elon Musk. He held our connections and information hostage, thinking that no one would ever leave because the switching cost would be too high and he could carry on grifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There will be a hole in the internet where our dreams once lived. The cost\u00a0is too high. But as Keanu would say\u2026 shoot the hostage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n