Are Twitter Blackouts The New Protest?

Lindy West left Twitter because of the platform’s failure to sanction its trolls. For anyone left on Twitter – what should we do now?

This isn’t necessarily an elegy for Lindy West’s Twitter feed. It was indeed a source of great short-form content from one of the best feminist writers around. Thanks to that same outspoken feminism, it also made West and others a frequent target for the dark, hate-filled underbelly of Twitter.

Still, let’s not feel one hundred percent bad for West. She’s doing pretty well, as evidenced by her regular work at The Guardian and her recent bestseller Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman. West also praised the platform for its democratization of news and information exchange. She also enjoyed Twitter for the bevy of smart, funny, empathetic people that make up a large part of its user base.

Yet, that wasn’t enough. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the endless trolls and threats that did in West’s tweets. West departed because of marked inaction on Twitter’s part. “The white supremacist, anti-feminist, isolationist, transphobic “alt-right” movement has been beta-testing its propaganda and intimidation machine on marginalised Twitter communities for years now,” wrote West.

And yet, despite repeated calls from its users, Twitter executives did next to nothing. There were no real sanctions, no blocking, no way to enforce a code of civility and intelligence. Twitter, according to West, has been infested by this rising tide of hatred and misinformation.

Life After Twitter

So, now what? It’s true that Twitter has an ugly problem. Just look at the influence of Trump’s tweets, which can release the hounds on his enemies or affect the course of our government, for better or worse. A recent Twitter-based critique from his account helped to force the U.S. House of Representatives to reconsider its attempts to weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics. He’s also used that same account to harass citizens, defame journalists, and undermine U.S. diplomacy.

Writer E. Alex Jung suggested Twitter blackouts. Not the black squares you saw all over social media after the election, but a real, honest blackout of Twitter use. He reminded users that Twitter depends on their unpaid labor to succeed. A mass protest of the platform might then finally get executive’s attention.

Would it work? Maybe, if somehow people could collectively tear themselves away from Twitter for more than a day. Or would it simply leave the platform to fully transform into a bubbling cesspool of mindless hatred?

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Still, though, this is no longer a time for baby steps and compromising with evil. Big change – like, getting Twitter execs to stand up to bigotry – requires big protest and substantial effort. Perhaps a blackout would work. Perhaps it would come off simply as a tantrum to the unsympathetic. Either way, it’s no longer acceptable to sit quietly and allow hatred to happen. Something has to give.