I joined Twitter sometime in 2007. At 13-years, it is the longest I have ever used a social media platform. In those years, I have gone off it for extended periods of time. 6-month was the longest, I believe.
Sometime last year, I had started to empty out my Twitter feed. The fact that public data was becoming a liability, both as a security issue and as a triangulation issue made me very uncomfortable. The scripts managed to delete about 2-years of data from my profile.
And then the pandemic struck. I got back on the platform mainly because I was alarmed, in March, how little seriousness I saw about what was coming our way in India. At that time, I had hoped that we’d do well and in a few months I could go back to being inactive and delete the rest of my older tweets and be done with it.
Things have played out much differently than I had hoped for since then. We have no end in sight for the pandemic and I am still around. That is not nice.
My Twitter usage used to be a lot different till 2017 or 2018. There used to be a lot of tech, a lot of travel and plenty of non-serious content. It is around that time that the content started changing for me, mostly driven by the data privacy concerns.
It also took quite a political/policy-oriented shift. Maybe a bit too much, in fact. I can imagine my feed being not a fun place to follow in these dark times. But, that is the thing, is it not?
We are living in times where changes are afoot that will destroy a lot of things we cherish. I am at a stage in life where I cannot be on the frontlines. But, speaking up, while I still can, is the least I can do.
If that makes for dour reading, I can’t do much about it. I would rather make people uncomfortable about where we are headed than be a stream of pleasant things.
