The day Trump was elected I stopped reading the news. My survival depended on that refusal. I’m not proud of it, but it’s what I had to do.
You're not the only person I know to do that, and it feels entirely justifiable to me. I went through long stretches like that in relation to UK politics a few years back, because the anxiety caused by various Brexit-related things was having physical effects on my body, and I don't regret that choice for a second.
That definitely sounds like a fascinating time to have witnessed! I was alive then, but just a small child so it passed me by at the time. I really think it was a huge moment in history — one of the few times when people were aware of the enormity of what they were witnessing in real time as it happened.
The ease of misinfo spread now is terrifying to contemplate.
The thing that really terrifies me is that people on the centre-liberal-left side of the political spectrum can spot misinfo easily when it's the sort of campaign targeted at the far-right (e.g. conspiracy theories about Covid lockdowns and vaccines, fearmongering about refugees and migrants), but they're generally bad at recognising the similar campaigns that target the political left — I can often recognise these campaigns now that I know what to look out for, but it often requires a level of understanding of the politics and histories of specific foreign countries/regions that many people in the US or Western Europe lack. And because there's no culture of pausing to research and check before clicking 'retweet'/'reblog'/'share' on a context-free post that presses the correct emotional buttons, people spread this kind of disinformation without checking. Left-wing people can be very smug about the stupidity of people who buy into right-wing conspiracy theories, but can be susceptible to exactly the same thing.
Re: Congratulations on quitting Twitter
You're not the only person I know to do that, and it feels entirely justifiable to me. I went through long stretches like that in relation to UK politics a few years back, because the anxiety caused by various Brexit-related things was having physical effects on my body, and I don't regret that choice for a second.
That definitely sounds like a fascinating time to have witnessed! I was alive then, but just a small child so it passed me by at the time. I really think it was a huge moment in history — one of the few times when people were aware of the enormity of what they were witnessing in real time as it happened.
The ease of misinfo spread now is terrifying to contemplate.
The thing that really terrifies me is that people on the centre-liberal-left side of the political spectrum can spot misinfo easily when it's the sort of campaign targeted at the far-right (e.g. conspiracy theories about Covid lockdowns and vaccines, fearmongering about refugees and migrants), but they're generally bad at recognising the similar campaigns that target the political left — I can often recognise these campaigns now that I know what to look out for, but it often requires a level of understanding of the politics and histories of specific foreign countries/regions that many people in the US or Western Europe lack. And because there's no culture of pausing to research and check before clicking 'retweet'/'reblog'/'share' on a context-free post that presses the correct emotional buttons, people spread this kind of disinformation without checking. Left-wing people can be very smug about the stupidity of people who buy into right-wing conspiracy theories, but can be susceptible to exactly the same thing.