I've heard a lot of people say, "I would leave but I need to use it for work." I get that social media is a cheap and easy way to promote your work. But would you put ads in a Nazi newsletter if they offered you the space free? Bird site has, REPEATEDLY, thousands if not millions of times refused to enforce its own terms of service when it comes to harassment and threats because they know pissing off Nazis would decrease their numbers.

It's time to show these capitalist cowards who run bird site and hide behind a straw shield of "free speech" that if they want to keep their Nazis, they're going to lose everyone else. I hope that you'll join me. I hope you've done it already.

/end

@SuzanEraslan That's true, but there are still millions of regular people using Twitter and you can't ask people who are struggling to get their work out there to abandon a platform entirely

@msk Yes, I actually can. I just did. I'm not going to judge anyone who chooses to stay on it-- in fact, I think that the core audience of fans leaving will be the bigger impetus than asking the writers, bloggers, artists, etc. to leave, because if they don't have an audience, why stay. But there comes a time when you have to make a choice. I'm sacrificing a built up audience, too, even if it's comparatively small. This has consequences for me.

@SuzanEraslan so you're sitting here telling me you're actively trying to tear down people's audiences in order to get them to move to mastodon so that they have to rebuild their audience, just because that's what /you/ decided to do?

Do you know how selfish that sounds? Do you know that some people barely make anything and

you know what that's just fucked up

@msk No, I'm not encouraging them to move to Mastodon at all. I'm encouraging them to find alternative ways to market themselves that don't indirectly provide financial support to a platform for Nazis. I'm not quite sure how advocating for an economic boycott, free of judgment if you decide not to do it, is somehow selfish, but I can tell this really upsets you.

@SuzanEraslan Yeah because you're placing all the responsibility on the people who create to "find a better way to do it"

Like it's easy or something

I've been trying to market fiction since 2011, with almost no luck at all

I've been marketing my music since I started in January and it's kind of been working

And you want me to "find a better way"?

What way? Tumblr, where people actively ignore you unless you have 100,000 followers? Facebook where it's filled to the brim with reactionary old people?

I mean Masto has been kind of alright, but you can't blame creators for basically being forced to use large platforms that have dodgy admins. It isn't my responsibility to find a better way, especially when there are literally no better ways

@msk I didn't ask you to do that. I encouraged those who can do so to do it. If you feel like it's impossible for you to publish and market your work without the use of Twitter, then don't leave. There are, I am sure, a myriad ways that you can participate in dismantling white supremacy elsewhere that would be easier for *you*. But for the average user who doesn't need to promote their work to thousands of people, this is an easy action.

@SuzanEraslan and since we haven't spoken before I'm just gonna clue you in: I'm shadowbanned on Twitter, I'm not making any money for twitter. I literally only tweet stuff here or there, or share my work so can you please tell me how that's making Jack any money

@msk Yes, I can. As an active user, you are, yes, one single digit, but you're still a contributor to the numbers they give to advertisers as potential eyes. Every tweet is another number given to advertisers to prove engagement. Twitter often says things like, "We had 10 million tweets during the Super Bowl" or whatever as a way to demonstrate the number of "impressions," which is how advertisers weigh the value of an advertising platform.

@SuzanEraslan So the general idea is that I should take a hit to possible income to participate in the revolution

Even tho if I don't have income I won't be around in a few years

@msk You're again taking something extremely personally that I have, repeatedly, said that if it's not possible for you to do, don't do. I'm not sure why you think I'm targeting you, specifically, or your followers, to delete your Twitter accounts. If it will actually kill you, then a boycott doesn't make any sense for you, and that's FINE. Again, no judgment if you decide to keep it up.

@msk Though I'm extremely curious how, if you're shadow banned, Twitter is contributing to the proliferation of your work? How is it helping you to not be able to reach people but be counted as an active user?

@SuzanEraslan Because the ppl following you can still see what you post even if you're shadowbanned

@SuzanEraslan Well I just have this issue here because you're acting like I'm complicit in Jack's endorsement of Nazis and white supremacy but I just don't want to end up homeless with no future you know? I already feel like I don't have a future

I know that just by being white I am in a lot of ways already complicit in white supremacy, and I am trying to work on that a lot, but something about this particular idea doesn't rub me the right way

@msk Ok, well, part of the reason that I posted this thread in the first place is because I didn't realize that I was complicit until today and I felt like maybe other people were also unaware of the connection. The more that we attempt to wrest control of Twitter from the neo-Nazis through tweeting, the more we're actually feeding the platform that supports them. It's a really vicious cycle, and it sucks. (more coming)

@msk Twitter as we once knew it is not coming back because there's too much money at stake and that money is dependent on proof of use-- if we're going on tweet threads about how evil Richard Spencer is an RTing each other like crazy, then the pure metrics show that we're engaged. Advertisers aren't given the data on how many tweets are about how Twitter and Jack suck, just how many tweets there are.

@msk But if you have no other possible platform with which to communicate with your followers, if it's really impossible for you to get them to move somewhere else (maybe register for a TinyLetter-- studies show that email marketing is actually still the most effective way to get people to give you money, weirdly enough), then the boycott is not an option for you, and that's TOTALLY ok. /end

@SuzanEraslan

I did the same a while back, for the same reasons. It needs to happen, and it won't happen unless more people start severing ties with Twitter completely.

I'd been on there since 2009, and had multiple large-ish and stable communities, but enough already.

@shoutcacophony Yeah, exactly. We can't dismantle the masters' house with the masters' tools, and Twitter has become the masters' primary tool. If every tweet we send for social justice or revolution contributes to traffic they can reference to further enrich themselves to afford servers to propagate harassment, threats, dangerous propaganda, and coordinated violence, our "righteous" tweets do the opposite of what we aim for them to do.

@SuzanEraslan Yes. Not to mention that it frequently enables if not encourages the types of pernicious infighting that comes with being on such a right wing empowering, embattled platform, from the left. It's completely human for people to break down and start fighting each other, rather than actual enemies, under such conditions. Not disagreeing, and definitely not praxis, but pointless, circular, constant, bitter fighting.

@SuzanEraslan It's like driving when you have the flu: possible, but why would you do that, if at all avoidable.

@shoutcacophony Oh, absoLUTEly. I've been on it long enough that I remember when we used to have conversations on there instead of shrieking at each other and calling each other out constantly. I also have seen such a totally different atmosphere on Mastodon by comparison, and part of it is the medium-- 500 characters, CW, etc.-- but part of it is also that we're allowed to discuss without fear.

@SuzanEraslan Couldn't agree more. Same here.