For years now, I have used Twitter as a microblog. I started on a public account in February of 2007 under my real name. During GamerGate, circa 2012, my Twitter usage dropped dramatically and I spent more time on Tumblr and Facebook. But in the late 2010s I split off a couple other Twitter accounts: one public, not under my real name, for engaging in fandom stuff after Tumblr banned explicit content; and one private, also not under my real name, for sharing personal stuff after Facebook’s lack of ethics spurred me to close my account.
Basically, I used that third Twitter account as my journal, as the place where I connected with people I cared about. That’s where my photos and quick blurbs about my life went. I shared thoughts and feelings and big decisions. I didn’t have everyone there, but I had a lot of people. It was private, and it was comfortable.
That’s all changed now that Twitter is run by a thin-skinned fascist. I no longer feel safe sharing personal life details, even on a private account.
In considering what I want to do about this, I have finally accepted that I can’t trust third-party sites with my personal information. It’s taken me a long time to embrace this truth, because it’s so easy to use social media, and social media is where most people are. But this kind of thing is just going to keep happening.
So what I’m going to do instead is start using this blog again. Whenever I feel like rambling about something or sharing something, I’m going to post here.
WordPress doesn’t have robust user permissions, so I can’t simply set up roles for user accounts and then limit certain posts to certain roles. My only option that isn’t installing a plugin is to password-protect any posts I don’t want the general public to see. I’m not keen on installing a plugin to manage security, so for now I’m going to use the password method.
If you see a password-protected post you’d like to read, and you’re a friend of mine, reach out to me directly and I’ll share the password.