Nope! I am not impressed with Twitter since it became X

Back in the sands of time, well in 2008 to be precise, I started a blog called The Barnet Eye. I won't go into the circumstances here, they are well documented. But when I started it, I assumed that no one would read it. It didn't really occur to me that anyone would be too interested. I didn't check the stats for about six months, I didn't want to be discouraged. When I did, I was amazed. There had been over 50,000 views. I immediately put the blog hits tracker in the side bar. That number is now not far off 12 million. I guess it is fair to say I've done something right, not quite sure what. 

After I'd been doing it a while, a couple of my readers started leaving comments saying I should join Twitter as it is more interactive. I resisted. I had a quick look and soon realised that it was pretty dull and uninteresting. But I kept getting nagged to join. People told me that everyone elses blog would get more hits. I succumbed. My plan was simply to post a link to my latest blog, in the hope that they'd go away and leave me alone. But once I was on and people started commenting on my tweets, I realised that there was something to be said for engagement. I then realised that it was a useful mine of information. I started a feature called "The Tweets of the Week in the London Borough of Barnet". I had a list of tweeters and a list of areas of the Borough and I'd check them and post the best bits on a Sunday. 

The Elon Musk took over and it changed. Now unlike many people I didn't hate Elon Musk and I accepted that it was the sort of thing that American billionaires do. Many people I knew left just because Musk was in charge. I stayed. I did however notice that it was becoming ever harder to fill the Tweets of the Week feature. Quite simply, no one was postig interesting hyper local tweets any more, or not enough to justify my time. So I stopped. Then last year, my account was suspended. Apparently I'd broken a rule and they decreed that my account was not genuine. They never told me what tweet had broken the rule or why. After over fifteen years, I just ceased to exist on the x.com platform. I appealed and got a response saying I'd be reinstated, but I wasn't. I contacted them five times. Four times I was told I'd be reinstated, the fifth, I was told their automated systems had decided that I had broken their rules and that was sort of that.

Hello,   We have reviewed your appeal request for account, @Barneteye.   Our automated systems have determined that a violation of our Rules did take place, specifically:   We considered the additional information provided and decided an overturn of our original decision is not warranted in this case. Therefore, we will not overturn our decision to lock your account.   In order to restore account functionality, you can resolve the violations by logging into your account and completing the on-screen instructions.   Thanks, X Support

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I logged on and I couldn't see any on screen instructions, other that to submit an appeal that I'd already done. I have no idea what my tweets did that broke the rules and they won't tell me.

Do I care? No. It is mildly annoying that there are a couple of accounts that I engaged with purely via Twitter, but hey ho. I was getting almost no engagement. Whereas Tweets used to get 2-3,00 views, now they got half a dozen. The site is banal and they incentivise people to post crappy clickbait. 

Am I impressed. Nope. What am I going to do about it? What my instincts told me to do all along. Ignore the whole bloody thing. It has become dull and is past its sell by date.