Hello, Twitter. I’m baaaack.

I know. I know.

Back in January 2021, I reached the point that I could no longer stomach the atrocious censorship of thought after an incredibly confusing and contentious 2020. From race riots, COVID confusion to political turmoil of a (still) contested election, I had watched with growing unease the “powers that be” of social media labelling posts as “misinformation,” shadowbanning accounts to limit their influence and reach to ulimately closing accounts and locking people out of social media altogether (including the former President).

I left what I called “OSM” – Old Social Media. That included Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Twitter was my favorite of the Big Three.

In Goodbye, OSM, I wrote:

It’s been two years almost.

I didn’t miss OSM. It freed up a lot of time and gave me new digital habits. It’s been an interesting journey, because I continued to use Instagram (as a stalker for family and friends and funnies), and I used Twitter’s website on occasion to research news and events. I didn’t chime in anywhere.

And then there was Elon.

I won’t begin to document here the astonishing amount of social media posts that were censored, labeled as misinformation or outright deleted or banned. Y’all… people were kicked off of YouTube, Google search results were manipulated, real news and information was prevented from being seen on these social media and Big Tech platforms. For posting information that we now know was indisputably true.

It took an obnoxious billionaire (and it wasn’t Trump this time) to upset the apple cart. When Elon Musk bought Twitter, I began considering a return. When he began aggressively reinstating accounts last week, it was encouraging.

But that’s when I learned bad news.

I went to log in to my Twitter account @journeyguy, and… it said I had the wrong password. I tried to click on recovery options but never received an email or text… That’s when I looked up twitter.com/journeyguy. To my disappointment, my old account had been given to someone else – in March 2021.

Granted, Twitter now has a published policy that states:

Users have 30 days to log in to reactivate a previously deactivated account. If it has been more than 30 days since you deactivated, you will not be able to reactivate your account.^[1]Twitter support site

Needless to say, it’s been longer than 30 days. I’ve reached out to this new @journeyguy, but it looks like a spam account, and Twitter support has not been helpful.

Goodbye, @journeyguy.

Hello… @biblebeltman.

I had created biblebeltman a few months ago when I moved to Substack. I knew that I wouldn’t be using journeyguy.com as my URL (it’s jeffnoble.net) since that was tied to my old WordPress blog, and I wanted to keep that blog up and running.

I invite you to follow me at @biblebeltman. I’m taking suggestions on renaming my Twitter username! Chime in!

I am also to rebuild my account from scratch, lists and all. I’d appreciate you following me – I’ll follow back!

“Instant” community

Within 24 hours of getting back on Twitter, I had scheduled two coffee visits with people locally that I don’t normally see in my routines. In two years of being on Gab, TruthSocial, and GETTR, that never happened.

That’s proof of community and the real power of using “social” media well.

I doubt I’ll be getting back on Facebook, and I’m wrestling with whether I’ll re-enter the Insta foray. (Insta was reactivated no problem).

In the meantime, others exit

It’s been hard to not shake my hand in bafflement as another exodus from Twitter has occurred in the past two weeks – of liberals who are furious with Musk for promoting free speech online.

The actor Jim Carrey supposedly left Twitter in protest:

Carrey appears to be the latest self-inflicted casualty in the left’s meltdown over billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg also announced that she was “done with Twitter” earlier this month. Her account is seemingly deactivated. Singer Sara Bareilles similarly told her fans that she was leaving the platform in October.^[2]Jim Carrey roasted on Twitter for announcing exit from social media platform with bizarre video, by Jeffrey Clark, FoxNews, November 30, 2022

It’s a surreal world when people advocate for censorship. I still prefer to embrace the reality that when truth and falsehood are allowed to square off, truth wins.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, “If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate.”^[3]Was Oliver Wendell Holmes Right About Free Speech? by Christopher Finan, Publishers Weekly, November 8, 2019

Holmes knew what he was doing 100 years ago. The only way to respond to people with hateful ideas is to let them speak and then challenge what they say. It is human nature to want to suppress speech that hurts people—but the last century has shown that free speech is essential to the growth of democracy.

…free speech was necessary because the best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.^[4]Ibid.

Viva la liberte!

It’s a principled choice to return.