I left the X cesspool today.

My Twitter account goes back to January 2011.

And it ends today.

It ends because of many things. I ended it after the results of last night’s election. I ended it because, in the past two years that Elon Musk has operated Twitter, he’s turned it into a cesspool. What was once a free outlet of communication is now a “pay $8/month to be verified and have special bonuses, or your posts will get throttled like sand through an hourglass.” What was once a safe place for discussion is now a hellscape of conspiracy wingnuts, QAnon knuckleheads and keyboard terrorists with delusions of monitor courage. Oh yeah, now the platform is called X. Whoop dee doo.

Two years ago, I put one foot out the door by establishing a Mastodon account. And I also realigned my blogfeed so that, instead of my blog populating to X, it now populates to both Mastodon and Facebook. That’s it. I can control who sees my posts on those platforms, and I don’t have to worry about stalkers, griefers and other hurtful people on those platforms.

Face it. I don’t need X in my life.

And now comes this news.

Fuck no.

There are reasons why I block people from interacting with me. I block those people who harass me, who try to intimidate me, who try to peddle their horseshit beliefs and who try to use the platform to intimidate me. “Freedom of Speech” does not mean you can force me to listen to your blatherings.

I don’t need that kind of grief in my life.

I also don’t need pop-up messages like this.

Let’s make things clear. If I block someone, I don’t want them stalking me. I don’t want them reading my posts. And I shouldn’t have to keep my account in “protected” mode to achieve this. But then again, this is Elon Musk being Elon Musk.

And I don’t need a platform that continues to propagate lies and misinformation and disinformation at me.

So this morning, at about 1:30 a.m., I uninstalled the social media platform formerly known as Twitter from my cell phone. And I logged off the former Twitter – now X – from my desktop computer, and removed any and all bookmark tabs for that platform from my browser.

I made sure to keep the account listed as “private,” so that nobody can claim the chuckthewriter name and start using THAT for propaganda.

If I have to go through the next four years of my life with that orange goblin back in power … I need to protect myself. I need to protect my life. I need to protect my well-being.

Trust me. I’ve had one foot out the door ever since Elon Musk bought the platform.

Today … the other foot passes through the threshold.

For all the people I’ve met and interacted with on what was once Twitter, thanks for all the great memories and wonderful interactions.

It was fun. But it’s not fun any more.

Not any more.