Read on Twitter
I’m leaving Twitter. Which won’t upset many, but does upset me very much. 1/
I joined it late in the day when it was still funny/educational/uplifting/interesting/relatively fair. 2/
I followed lots of folk, enjoyed checking in on their stuff, as I don’t have a link to them on other media. @MartinKPearson @marcusinstroud you’re classic examples, and I’ll miss your posts 3/
I followed various economic and political commentators and have loved being challenged. @cjsnowdon and @afneil and @Fox_Claire and @Miss_Snuffy thank you. 4/
I’ve followed tv and news channels and newspapers, because it’s good to know what’s going on 5/
I followed lots and lots of media folk, mainly cos I used to think they were funny. Turns out a lot of them aren’t. But a few still are, like @henningwehn. He’s brilliant. 6/
I followed tons of really, really silly sites because life needs laughs. @TakeAShite @DadJokeMan @TwopTwips @TerribleMaps 7/
And I follow probably the nicest person on Twitter @iaindwelch who paints and sketches and shares the results with us. He is unfailingly kind and seems to reply to everyone in the most lovely manner 8/
But I can’t face twitter now. Apparently no one is allowed an opinion without being called a fascist, an incel, a Karen, a snowflake, “woke”, a neo-liberal, a post-liberal, a racist, a [you name it] phobe, a terf, a Remoaner, a nazi, a gammon, absolutely any label will do. 9/
People are “cancelled” for their opinions or even for who they’re going out with. People are banned from twitter because of their opinions. Very slippery slope that one. One day it will be you. 10/
People are accused of crimes on twitter and found guilty by an anonymous kangaroo court. It has become a poisonous, toxic hotbed of intolerance and hate 11/
There are still some fabulous bits and I will miss them. But I don’t want to be part of something which is harmful and damaging. It is certainly hurting me because I no longer feel able to say anything without risk of a pile on. 12/
And the nail in the coffin was this. https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=1370978944&i=1000480281835">https://itunes.apple.com/WebObject... 13/
A bbc podcast which has 3 young women daring to tell me that white women should be quiet, they should “basically just leave”. 14/
The ignorance of ANYONE trying to shut others up because of colour, gender, creed or choice of toilet paper or any other reason is staggering. 15/
Sadly, we don’t need @BBCSounds to be telling us to pipe down. Society does that already. Just by getting older, women become less visible, less heard, less relevant. 16/
So I’m going to leave all the sewer rats behind. Hopefully the good will prevail. Cheerio.
