X-ing out Twitter?

Yeah, yeah, I know … I just say the word “twitter” and some of y’all shudder. And I get it.

Even in the best of times, the platform was misunderstood by many who heard the worst about it and didn’t have a chance to see the best of it. The best of it wasn’t for everyone, although I hoped people in this class would come to at least understand what good the platform brought to some folks.

But now, it’s changed. I don’t just mean the name (and what kind of a name is X? It feels so meaningless, although doesn’t allow for some witty comments about how changing its name to X was a means of canceling itself).

This year I had a choice to make: Twitter? Or X it out?

I decided to not use it (unless some of you want to use it, in which case you should let me know). My main reasons were the changes that the platform has undergone in recent times, changes that go beyond ownership and name.

I want to share about my reasons because I like to make my choices transparent to students. In this discipline, courses and educational choices serve as models. They warrant discussion.

Let me tell you about how we used Twitter in previous years. I tweeted using the course hashtag, #eme6414. Students could tweet, or not. I would interact with whoever tweeted with me, and I would post notices about things going on in the course, like challenges and badges. It wasn’t an issue for students who didn’t tweet because (a) I’d replicate the same info elsewhere and (b) they could passively follow along on Twitter without an account (two options: there was a widget in the blog sidebar that would list the most recent tweets to #eme6414 and link through to the Twitter page that aggregated those tweets, or they could go to the Twitter web page that aggregated those tweets.

Here’s what a past EME6414 student might encounter:

However, the platform has really closed down. In 2023, the settings changed. It is no longer possible to really search through and watch things play out on Twitter without an account. Musk said that’s because data scraping was causing the service to “degrade.” Whether that is true or not, the end result is a less useful platform for EME6414 purposes. 

It’s a pity, because Twitter made it easy to interact quickly with others. In contrast to Instagram, graphics weren’t required and people could easily share links and have short-message exchanges on there. Plus it worked equally well on a phone or in a browser. 

I’m saddened by these changes. I really didn’t use Twitter much the other 9 months of the year (occasionally while at a conference), but always enjoyed the EME6414 interactions each summer.

If you want to use Twitter, please comment on this post and I’ll get things up and running. And if not … well, I’ve been exploring other options that seem more palatable. They’re different, for sure, but different isn’t necessarily bad.