I shouldn’t do it, but WTF.

Posted by Pointman on January 22, 2021 · 55 Comments 

Sometimes you discover something all on your own and realise it was always there right under your nose but you’d simply failed to ask an obvious question. In yesterday’s piece I said the most immediate thing people can do is stop using social media platforms in order to protect themselves and really hurt the American oligarchs of big tech. The only one I had was Twitter, so I attempted to close Pointman’s account there. Since it was only ever opened to follow the tweets of the real president circumventing fake news and talking directly to his deplorables, now seemed as good a time as any since he’d already been banned.

Apparently, you can only deactivate an account there, you can’t actually close it. Associating the word close with a Twitter account would obviously hurt Jack’s feelings. To Hell with it. A rose by any name, I decided to “deactivate” my account. All went swimmingly until I hit the deactivate form, which seemed simple enough. One data entry field labelled password, four or so helpful paragraphs underneath pointing out how I could reactivate it and a button labelled deactivate.

After typing my password and pressing the deactivate button, lo and behold, it came back with just the same form with no error message or anything else added. Gave it a few more attempts, but no progress to my deactivation. Calling an account closure a deactivation really does have a Borg overtone to it, doesn’t it? Poor little me, I’d been assimilated and there was no escape.

Strange, I’m sure I used the correct password, but since I’m not possessed of any papal infallacy, I repeated the same procedure with exactly the same result. Undeterred and my dander well and truly up and pointing directly at mullah Dorsey, I logged out, logged back in and tried again with the same result. My Damascene moment had arrived. It wasn’t actually possible to leave Twitter. It answered the obvious question I’d failed to ask myself. Given the despotic behaviour of the mullah and his little army of censor imps, why hadn’t millions of people closed their account there? Answer – they can’t, hence no bloodbath reports of people deserting the platform. Doh!

When confronted by an act of tyranny which you can do nothing to fight, the normal reaction is to get frustrated and angry in the face of being helpless, which I was, but it also brings out the “fuck you and the hoss you rode into town” attitude in me. Let’s change the game here and have a little bit of fun at the same time. Waste my time and energy, then I’ll bloody well waste yours as well as pissing you off as I have a lark. People tell me it’s the bad side of me, the trouble maker, the awkward bastard, the devil in me coming out to play, all of which are lamentably true and I fret about constantly. But everyone also knows the devil always has the greatest laughs. Look around you if you don’t believe that.

Okay, I’m not allowed to leave this festering pustule on the mullah’s ass which squirts puss every time he sits down on his users, so let’s make them throw me out. If you’re doing what they expect you to do, you’re playing their game.

Fine, I now have a clear objective, so it just comes down to means and methods. Which to use though? Mekratrig suggests hurling them down onto the burning marl to roast for eternity in agony – he can be a bit unsubtle like that. Number one, I can’t get my hands on them and two, there’s a worldwide shortage of marl cause by global warming. Bastard environmental loonies, always causing difficulties, so as a plan it lacks certain practicalities but at least imagining it does have a cathartic value.

Left to my own infernal devices, the answer would seem to behave like a really really bad boy, and they’ll be forced to give me the Spanish archer, otherwise known as the elbow. One well thought out tweet massively offending every sensibility they have should do the trick, that’ll show Johnny Censor. Naw, it’d be too quick. Pleasures are best enjoyed if there’s a slow and gradual buildup to a climax. Start off mildly offensive and build up the payload until they finally ban me. Not sure of how exactly their Kangaroo court works though. A warning first? If so, good. I’ll make a suitably grovelling apology, accept their judgement like a good little fellow, behave myself for a while and then gradually resume my ascent of Mount Insufferable.

Enough of that and I guess I get suspended for some period of time. Yipee. Same routine again, grovel time, cessation of hostilities afterwards and then a resumption of my climb but this time using suitably ambiguous tweets that can be read a lot of ways – philosophical, rhetorical or just plain insulting. Mix in an element of humour, always every fascist’s blind spot, and my plan to get banned looks to be hot to trot. The only attendant risk will be if they read this (low probability), or if the von Schlieffen plan falls victim to the wholesale banning they’re currently doing. The fun will be in inching them towards banning me while I fight tooth and nail to stay on it. You won’t snitch on me, will you?

Okay let’s roll, cue the satanic background music, best evil Vincent Price cackle, gleeful rubbing of hands and let’s start tweeting with “I don’t think Jack Dorsey knows censorship is wrong”. Every hook has to have a bait. Using the mullah’s name should automatically attract the censor’s attention. I’ll keep you appraised of what’s happening in the comments, though any suggestions on your part might be inspirational.

©Pointman

Related articles by Pointman:

Things to do today.

Devilment – The scorning of William Connolley.

More devilment – Moderating, trolls, soup ladles and Ethics.

Click for a list of other articles.

Filed under Article · Tagged with Big Tech, Censorship, Jack Dorsey, Resist the Regime, Twitter