Twitter is not dead, just in distress. With any beating heart there is always hope. I have a plan. This plan is fairly far-fetched and was initially based on a joke, but isn’t that how most great campaigns start?
Last night, as I lay awake thinking about how my life as I know it is over and wondering how I can salvage my legal career after outing myself on Twitter and then not having my success on Twitter to fall back on, once the site is destroyed. For those of you who are not actively on the platform like some of us, let me sum up the past week: imagine a peasant revolt in Paris meets Tron.
In one week Elon Musk made it clear that he is not serious about maintaining the platform. He has alienated advertisers, pissed off everyone who uses the platform, gotten on the wrong side of the celebrities who promote the site and is now being sued by California. To be honest, most of us knew this was coming, we were just waiting to watch it unfold.
The current problem is that no other platform currently exists that offers the same features and basic level of communication. People who are looking to flee to keep their online communities in tact have no where to go, except Facebook. And if you are fleeing a sinking Twitter for the dumpster fire of Facebook, then what is the point.
Our last real hope for this website that we love, is for Elon Musk to run it into the ground so quickly, that his investors force him to sell for a much lower purchase price than he paid. What if the people who love Twitter could buy Twitter, or at the very least become remote investors for just a few dollars. The platform could be made public again, and then properly regulated to conform to federal and state regulations.
Advertisers would come back, users would come back and the platform would remain free. More importantly, we would all know where we were going to organize and regain our sense of community before…I don’t know…A HUGE ELECTION.
For this reason, I started a GoFundMe to buy Twitter. I am pleased to announce that we have already surpassed our initial fundraising goal of 8$. (I set this limit as a joke about how Musk has been bartering with celebrities on Twitter for what he could charge to maintain a blue check verification on the site.) When and if we don’t reach our goal, all of the proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood to ensure women in the Untied States continue to have proper reproductive health care.
Consider helping to drive this point home and make this campaign go viral. It represents a great cause and will ultimately support an even better cause. We have to resurrect some levity and hope just days before the biggest election of our lives, when we are all feeling incredibly helpless. We are not helpless and at the very least, we can have some fun while we wait for Twitter to burn to the ground. We have already raised $160 and far surpassed our initial fundraising goal of $8! Make a donation here.
Also, please subscribe to my SHERO newsletter, I am freaking out that you will all go away.
💋,
Amee
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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That's kind of genius.
I always figured one motivation of Mush (and Saudi Arabia as it turns out, probably others) for buying Twitter was either to reduce it's already limited capacity to inform with facts or just to outright destroy it. At least one of those will be achieved. The best action anyone can take is just to get off Twitter ASAP. Substack is a great alternative coming out with chat. Entrepreneurs will complete gladly for Twitters users.