Deplatformed Again! Twitter in Death Spiral?
For those of you who were also following me on Twitter, my remaining two Twitter accounts (@AlsoGoldberg and @horsepasty) were deplatformed two days ago on August 26, 2022. No reason was given, apart from the ever vague: “After careful review, we determined your account broke the Twitter Rules.”
My original large account (@KimPigSquash) that I had used for 11 years with 11,000 followers was deplatformed earlier this year in May. I wrote about that here in “Pennies from Twitter Heaven.”
These are permanent suspensions with no meaningful appeal recourse, despite Twitter policy statements about some pro forma appeal process existing. I tried twice to appeal my original deplatforming of my large @KimPigSquash account. After a three-month wait, I received this terse reply from Twitter that my suspension was permanent, my case is closed, and they would not reply further. But at least they thanked me! Siri, when is niceness like a lobbed brick?
Twitter’s censorship of voices not following the official narrative on any number of topics (Covid, Ukraine, gender ideology, freedom movement) has been ratcheting up dramatically in advance of the November mid-term elections in the United States.
If you have followed my own tweets, you will know that these are spurious and unfounded deplatformings carried out against my Twitter accounts. My “offending” Covid-related tweets contain links to government websites or to scientific articles in peer-reviewed medical journals, or to data or observations directly from practicing medical doctors.
As a professional writer and journalist for 45 years, with eight books and more than 2,000 published articles to my credit, anything I tweet on controversial issues is factually worded, and with documentation supplied—even when writing as a citizen-activist rather than journalist. (I don’t hold my poetry and science fiction stories to the same restrictive standard, which is probably a good thing in terms of creativity!)
Earlier this month, my now-departed @AlsoGoldberg account was thrown in twitter jail for one week for this post shown below, which I wrote about here in “Invisible Casualties: the Injury That Dare Not Speak Its Name.”
The protocol I linked to in that offending tweet is from the Frontline Covid Critical Care website—a US-based organization of medical doctors headed by Drs. Paul Marik and Pierre Kory, who have been searching for (and finding!) effective treatments for Covid-19 since spring of 2020. Their organization has most recently designed and released the I-RECOVER protocol for treating post-vaccine inflammatory syndromes arising in people who have received the Covid-19 vaccines.
And Now For The Unpopular Part: Elon Musk, plus some Post-Modernism
This is why I am still hoping Elon Musk will acquire Twitter. The Wagnerian saga of Musk’s Twitter deal is unfolding daily with new twists and reveals.
It is still possible that Musk will acquire Twitter, and probably for far less than the $44 billion agreed upon. The recent whistleblower allegations from Twitter’s former head of security Peiter “Mudge” Zatko could plunge Twitter into federal prosecution for fraud and more.
I believe Elon Musk would make good on his pledge to restore free speech to twitter if he became owner. And I believe he would end the deplatformings that I and so many other journalists, as well as medical doctors, research scientists and other highly credible people, have been subjected to. Liberating twitter in this way is crucial for democracy and for defeating authoritarianism, since twitter is the pre-eminent platform functioning as our global town square. And Musk seems to understand this.
For my long-time friends and allies on the Left who say it’s impossible to support Elon Musk on anything whatsoever because he is part of the global elite, a one-percenter, a long-termer, a technocrat, a transhumanist, an AI advancer, etc., all I can say is: You are missing the point entirely. And you are applying a 20th century Modernist mentality to our 21st century Post-Modern reality. Such regressive thinking will not serve you well in the long run.
We Are Going Issue By Issue Now
The days of permanent, all-encompassing allegiance to any particular figure or ideology or political party are over and have been for a while. There is no Master Narrative. We are going issue by issue now, and must do so for our survival. If Elon Musk is a means to an end (and in this case he is the only means to an important end—namely, the liberation of twitter), then I will support him on that one thing. When he advocates things I don’t support such as nuclear power, I will oppose him on that.
That’s what going issue by issue means. Whatever vision each of us has for the change we want to see, we will need to support, in a narrowly focused way, whatever prominent figure or politician or party can deliver that one thing. And then move on to other prominent figures, politicians, parties, for the next thing we want to change or preserve. The likelihood that the same person or party will serve all our goals in our fragmented social landscape riddled with contradiction is slim indeed.
My lifelong allies on the Left, plus all the political parties and movements representing the Left, have spent the last two years advocating for my removal from society because of my choice not to inject a corporation’s experimental gene therapy product into my body. Left allies I have known for decades have supported proposals that I be fined, incarcerated or worse for my choices. Erstwhile friends have, to my face, casually called me a “killer” and a “murderer.” They have posted on my personal Facebook page that I should be denied oxygen if I need hospitalization. No less a Left icon than Noam Chomsky said the unvaccinated must be isolated from society and left to starve.
But that doesn’t mean I shift allegiances wholesale. It means instead that I adopt a utilitarian view of politics and political movements—even billionaires, if necessary. Who can accomplish Goal A? Who can accomplish Goal B? Who can accomplish Goal C? The answer will not be the same for all three. Because the person or party that will roll back the disastrous, pseudo-scientific vaccine mandates, may not support women’s right to reproductive choice or an end to old-growth logging or the freeing of Julian Assange.
Going issue-by-issue means you need to be more aware, more informed and more engaged to make the right choice on each issue, every step of the way. You need to claim and assert all of your agency. You can no longer just hit snooze and let a political party you have historically aligned with do your thinking for you.
This is perhaps the ultimate expression of Post-Modernism. There is no Master Narrative. And there is no single movement/ideology/figure of universal coherence, or worthy of universal allegiance. It is all issue by issue now.
My Coordinates
For now, you can find me:
on Facebook at @kim.goldberg.71
on Instagram at @kim.goldberg.poet
on Gettr at @KimGoldberg
I would be grateful for your help tweeting out this essay (since I can no longer do so) as a stand against Twitter censorship, and to let my friends and followers know what has become of me.
~
Kim Goldberg is a Vancouver Island writer and the author of eight books. Her latest is Devolution, poems and fables of ecopocalypse (Caitlin Press, 2020).
What a well documented clear headed essay. Thank you for keeping on. My mom is in Nainaimo, and in the same situation as you - as am I - but in Toronto. We critical thinking former lefties - need to be strategic and we need to find and support each other.
Thanks Kim. Will GETTR and pin. Mike