Vox automata, Vox fatuorum

I’m deleting my Twitter accounts on December 1, 2022.

I’ve been a Twitter user since 2007. Fifteen years. I’ve used it as a dumping ground for Foursquare check-ins (remember those?), to share photos, to get the news and learn more from people much smarter than I am. Now thanks to Elon’s ego and desperate need to pump chaos for clicks, I’m out.

I’ll have more to write about this later but it’s simple. I said when the first stories of Musk’s Twitter buy-out and potential reinstatement of the former president to the platform that if that happened I would delete my account. I’m a man of my word.

Musk finished the post noting that the former president’s account would be reinstated with the Latin phrase, Vox Populi, Vox Dei, or “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” Throughout the poll that proceeded his decision he continued to point to the numbers of “people” who had seen or voted in the poll. Yet it was not so long ago that Musk tried to get out of his Twitter purchase claiming that there were too many “bots” on the platform to trust any of the company’s numbers. Somehow apparently in the chaos of the first weeks of Twitter ownership the bot problem can be ignored if it gives Musk air cover to pander to the right wing.

I’m not leaving because Elon Musk bought Twitter. I’m leaving because Elon Musk cares more about monetizing conflict than keeping a repeat offender of misinformation, conflict, and incendiary language off the platform. I’m leaving because the former president is a malignant narcissist who would burn the Constitution just to bask in the glow of it.

And if you’re wondering, the title Vox automata, Vox fatuorum means “the voice of robots is the voice of fools”.