Updated 10/28/2015
Why does this Twitter Epitaph Not Impact Me?
“Twitter in 2015. Not a beautiful town square, but a raging mosh pit. Good luck selling tickets to that.”
I spend my loooong days on Twitter speaking my mind to the extent that I lose almost 1000 followers each week. I am all over the map in what I tweet and it may be the frequency of my perorations that drives folk away. On the other hand it may be confusion. One tweet might induce the sensation that I was for one side of an issue. Another another.
The truth is that I am a triadic philosopher who does not advocate conflict but does advocate a silent democratic revolution based on tolerance, helpfulness and non-idolatry.
But that is not my point exactly.
While communicating to my 232K followers, I can remember only a time or two when I was genuinely offended by anyone. In fact, the last two pejorative responses I got resulted in civil and lengthy exchanges.
I do not think I am alone.
Those who have no use for conflict and rage are probably reacting to their “home” streams. I long ago gave up doing that. I find home streams useless.
I read responses to my tweets and the pages of those who are following me who communicate with me. These are filled with civility, vast reach and interesting material.
Any person who thinks can avoid the cesspool. Just as anyone who does email can avoid spam.
If I have any complaint, it is with Twitter itself. I feel Twitter should be much nicer to folk like me than it has been. I like to deal with my weekly exodus by following new people. I do so by ensuring that whoever I am following has never been followed before. I limit those I follow to folk with full bios. I do not automatically follow people who follow me.
Twitter makes a person like me jump through hoops It has on occasion made it almost impossible for me to function. I think the curatorial powers of Twitter should be trained on serious and thoughtful users and that they should be given the same treatment Twitter accords to celebrities.
I also think Twitter should enable me to edit tweets to rid them of typos, etc. It cannot be that hard to do.
I am not holding my breath.
Still and all, Twitter is what you make of it.
It would be nice if the nastiness was not there but it is only there if people are willing to accept Twitter’s notion of how to inform folk. A stream for anyone with more than 50 followers is likely to be a cesspool.
A selective effort to read the tweets of the millions of thoughtful and civil folk who are the majority of Twitter users will not lead to an article like the one I am responding to. It will agree with my contention that Twitter like the world is what you make of it and you do not do well to follow at least some of the established rules and customs.
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Stephen C. Rose is the propounder of Triadic Philosophy and the author of numerous works supporting his thought. He writes daily on Medium and his books are available on Kindle . Twitter is the center of his activities online.
