Why I still post Tweets

[Dennis Donovan]

Why do I still post Tweets? There's still a contingent of Liberal sources, govt entities and Democratic politicians that are still using the platform. I've managed to isolate those sources to the point it's still a useful news aggregate to me, as long as you know how to navigate it and "mine" the good stuff from it.

My DU tweet posting takes into account what could be used by "X" (and Elmo) as a "click" or "engagement" (which he can use to lure advertisers to the platform). I've modified my habits as to what tweets I will post to DU. I go by this general rule: if a click inside a tweet "redirects" you from DU to "X", I won't post the tweet (there are several tweets that exhibit that behavior, like a linked tweet with an embedded video that resides inside another tweet - clicking the embedded video inside the linked tweet will re-direct you to "X" and count as a "click" for Elmo).

Also, clicking the "Show more" link often seen in a longer tweet will re-direct you to "X" so I transcribe all live tweets to include all of its content (so no clicking of the tweet - and a re-direction off of DU and onto "X" - is needed).

Linked pictures within a tweet often do not completely show in a tweet linked into DU - I will copy those to am image hosting site and then link the image directly into DU, preventing another "click" from reaching "X".

Overall general rule: If a link/video/picture within a tweet redirects you to "X", I will copy that content out of the tweet and transcribe it into a DU post, so the user is never redirected to "X".

At this point, I only post tweets for Liberal, News Media or Government content and to provide video content that might not be available on YouTube. Clicking an embedded video inside a single (not linked) tweet will NOT re-direct you to "X". It plays safely on DU.

Although it dwindles with every change to the platform Elmo makes, there's still value in what's left, and until that becomes nil, my goal is to keep DUers off the X platform as much as I can by these little tricks I've discovered. Once a workable substitute becomes available (Threads is promising, but displaying them on DU is still tricky), I will continue to mine Twitter for what worthwhile content is left.

I do this because I love DU and still want to participate on it, despite being handicapped (I have Parkinson's disease which makes it hard to type). Posting useful, relevant tweets allows me to use copy/paste/link/hot keys, etc. so I can still participate.

I know, tl;dr but I just wanted to put this out there and is not meant to influence others tweet-posting habits. YMMV...

-Dennis