Twitter is a platform run by clownfuck shitheels.

On January 2nd of this year, 2020, I tweeted out a greeting to the new year:

“Happy New Year to everyone except the ICE agents, all of whom I wish would contract some kind of horribly painful and humiliating disease.”

Basically, I was speaking in a tongue-in-cheek way, hoping they’d all get the clap at once. An obviously fanciful wish. There’s no VD Fairy to listen to my prayers, just in case anyone was afraid for the health of our pigs in uniform.

Twitter suspended me later the same day, saying that I had violated their rules against abuse and harassment.

Violating our rules against abuse and harassment. You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm.

This seems to me to be a tendentious and fuzzy interpretation of their rule. I was wishing for something that’s beyond anyone’s power. There’s no magic genie who’s gonna go, yeah that sounds like a good idea, let me do that. There’s no way for my malediction to inspire action, no blasting cap for the stochastic terrorism that they imagine I was trying to stir up.

It’s not like I’m saying “I hope someone locks ICE agents up in refrigerated holding cells.”

Nor am I saying “I hope ICE agents are held in unsanitary conditions and refused access to flu shots or other vaccines.”

I’m not saying “I hope ICE agents get permanently and irrevocably separated from their family.”

So now as far as I can tell I’m locked out from the followers list I built over the course of years. I can no longer access the archive of my own tweets. A private company has essentially banned me from the public square, because I wasn’t respectful enough of the agency that always tries to cover up how many innocent children they let die.

Later that same week, like within a day, the President of the United States used Twitter to publicly boast of his illegal murder of a foreign warlord, and to threaten Iran with war crimes should they retaliate. When you’re suspended you can still report other users; I did so.

Twitter did not even bother to respond.

They have turned down my appeal twice. I’m going back and forth on if I want to appeal a third time. This isn’t the first time Twitter has done something awful and disgusting. I kept trying to leave. Honestly I don’t want to go back. I’d rather liberate my followers list from Jack’s clutches and set up shop somewhere else.

And in a better world, I’d be able to do that. If you haven’t heard of it, I want to introduce you to network portability. The article I’ve linked here is about Facebook’s malfeasance, but the same principles hold true for Twitter.

Unaccountable silicon valley fuckwits shouldn’t control the public square. With the current status of network lock-in, they do. Call your Senator or Representative today and tell them you support being able to take your friends list with you, and you want them to make it law that you have the right to do so.