On Thursday evening, May 23, 2024, the Politics Hawaii with Stan Fichtman blog formally discontinued any further use of “X” (formerly known as Twitter). As a reader of this blog, and perhaps someone who interacted with it only through X, you are owed a reason why.
Furthermore, what is the plan for this blog going forward when it comes to social media, find out here too!
The reasons for this blog, and its writer, to discontinue engaging with X are multi-faceted and it was, looking back a long time in coming. My interaction with then-Twitter began as a new platform to promote my work in the Junior Chamber – encouraged by friends who would serve with me in leadership roles.
It would end with the realization that the platform, long done with being used for nonprofit work, had become a toxic place where people posting were not doing it for intellectual examination of political activities, but to one-up opposing opinions to the point of breaking friendships.
But it was even more than that.
PC: “2022_11_030100 – Elon Musk and Twitter” by Gwydion M. Williams is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The questioning of X began soon after Elon Musk bought the platform and took it private. At the time, he mentioned that voices that were suppressed by the former owners would be re-allowed onto it. It was hoped the voices of the past that were allowed back in would be more “genteel” in their approaches, knowing full well that once blocked and brought back, you can be blocked again.
What it turned out was that those voices were not only allowed back in, but they were also allowed to pick up in their visceral voice, with aplomb knowing that Musk was not going to block them, no matter what they said.
At that point, the thought by this blogger was if one set of voices is being allowed in, surely Musk would respect other voices coming in and at least give them a fair playing field to promote intellectual exchange.
Looking back on that, the word “naive” leaps to mind, because that is not what happened.
Instead, a certain set of voices are being both amplified and allowed to monetize from it, while other voices that may have another point of view that is not in line with a more right-of-center political viewpoint are suppressed.
This blogger saw that happen as posts made in the past that would have gotten some circulation now would see barely any statistics on who was seeing it. It would further get harder to see how a post’s performance did when X took down its post statistics page, which was a good way to see if a post had life in it in the “Twitterverse”.
It was noted, further, that posts made got very little circulation, with responses to key people like Republican Congresspeople and X influencers, getting even less action than that. More times than not, a post made would get single-digit engagement, and it was rare if a post was even “liked” or re-Xʻd. This was more true when one observed that those who paid for the “extra features” would get a bigger audience, while those who just used the free version, got no circulation at all.
Then, when those amplified and monetized voices would say something that, to this blogger, felt crossed a line, a report would be submitted, asking X to look at it and determine if it was against platform standards.
Before Musk, reports of offensive posts would prompt action, but after Musk took over, many reports came back with “no violation” determinations. It was no surprise when posters with blue checkmarks and monetized accounts were never penalized by the X police.
In fact, in one response back, X overtly came out to say that posts – in this case here one which had “common sense” defined sensitive content – that “We allow sensitive content — like consensually produced adult content, graphic imagery, and violence — in Tweets as long as it doesn’t break our sensitive media policy.”
PC: PHwSF screenshot of the email
It was at that point the first draft of what you are reading now, was made. Knowing that being involved with a platform that would allow the expression of violence to the public could cause problems for the blog as well as for the writer, personally.
But still, even at that point, there was something that told this blog publisher to wait a bit more to see if there may be changes. Also, the platform still provided the blog some assistance in finding out all the fundraisers’ politicians in Hawaii were holding through a robust posting by the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission. And, there were friends, some of this blog, whose interaction was still valued.
Then, figuratively, the other shoe dropped.
It came in the form of an interaction with one of the readers of this blog, who interacted with the blogger on X. Provided they came from another point of view, much more to the right than the political center this blog tries to keep to, interacting with them felt that there was still a space for intellectual conversation on matters and, at times, a meeting of minds on things that we didn’t disagree on.
Our interactions were valued because X could still be used as an area to put out ideas and see how they fared in the market of opinion that was out there. This person would engage, we would debate, and most times we either agree to disagree or at least respect the positions on both sides and disengage.
This time around, and not to go into much detail due to the sensitive nature of it, an opinion about a word that a presidential candidate used in their advertisement would lead to a realization that the person on the other side was not countering me just to work the algorithm and get better circulation, but that they truly believed that I was both wrong and that my position on the matter was that of a “teenaged girl” and that I was very unmanly in advocating for it.
It got worse in a private message with this person, who was told that it felt their statements were “a bit over the line” even for trying to work the algorithm. It was then, in their response, that it was decided that both contact with this person needed to cease, and a declaration that our friendship – one that has spanned almost 8 years – also needed to end.
So, contact with the person ceased. I did wish that person well in their future endeavors but noted that the friendship is over.
At that point, it felt like X had crossed a line in which its radicalizing of people is killing friendships and making interaction on the platform even more miserable. Add to that the suppression of any posts from this blog in the first place led to the decision to finally cut ties with X.
PC: “Social Media Logos on An Art Background” by mikemacmarketing is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
So the deactivation process started. It will be another month before the account “@politicsHI” is fully deleted, according to X. There is no intention for this blog to re-engage with X or take up the handle again. As far as this blog is concerned, the handle is retired by us. In other actions and directions, this blog has removed all references to X on its contacts and will take the handle off the blog itself.
In the future, this blog will continue to be published on Social Media through its account on Facebook (www.facebook.com/PoliticsHI) and shared with certain other sites including this blogger’s personal Facebook page (www.facebook.com/stan.fichtman). Furthermore, this blog will continue to post on a (relatively new) social media platform called “Nextdoor” at this site (it’s a lot of webby technical items in the address).
The blog also relishes the relationship it has with Hawaii Free Press (www.hawaiifreepress.com) of which Mr. Andrew Walden, Curator of the site, periodically features articles from this blog on it.
We may continue to publish on Medium (politicshawaii.medium.com), but as with X, there is not a lot of traffic there. More its a site to use “just in case” there is a glitch in the main website when publishing a piece.
But of course, the main articles that you will read, about interpreting the social, political, and cultural zeitgeist of Hawaii will always be found, first, on the Politics Hawaii website (www.politicshawaii.com). Articles will still come out about once every 2 weeks for the time being, with more frequent posts as events warrant.
And of course, if you wish to contact the blog directly, go to our “contact us” page and share your thoughts on this or anything else!