Farewell Twitter

After just over 14 years on the platform, I deactivated my Twitter account tonight. I haven't been using it much since I left provincial politics, but I'll miss it in a way; I won a Canada Writes contest on the platform, and Chase Masterson favourited one of my tweets, and Martin Landau's daughter Juliet followed me out of the blue. 

I once had a lot of hope for social media, but pernicious forces have turned what could have been a promising venue for better communication and understanding into a cesspool of hate speech and an arm for corporate and government surveillance. 

I feel more relaxed already. Facebook will be harder to get rid of, since I engage with more people there, but it, too, must go. One day I'll pull the plug.