Announcements: Leaving Twitter

Posted Jun 14, 2023 4:36PM EDT

Once Up A Time, OlderGay.Men had an account on Facebook. We posted updates there and replied to Facebook users' questions. Five years ago, questions arose about whether Facebook was a healthy place to be. I effectively closed my personal account after a final straw and deleted OlderGay.Men's presence there.

We did continue on Twitter, but it looks like that's coming to an end as well, at least for now. We've been receiving notices for weeks from Front, the company that helps us track problems for our members, that they're removing Twitter as a communications channel because Twitter is increasing the cost of API access beyond what they can support. In recent days, Twitter notified us that we could no longer automatically post updates from our site to our Twitter profile unless we started paying for the privilege.

It's not worth it for us, and Twitter's continuing to crash technically and regress ethically. It seems like a good time to drop it.

I recognize the utility of Facebook and Twitter and the good that still happens on each (an Older Gay-related footnote: when I say I "effectively closed" my Facebook account, I intended to delete it completely, but there were too many delightful old men who only communicated with me through Facebook Messenger 😀). But I don't think the benefits offset the harm and the hassle. I think we're OK here on our own.

I'm sorry if you're used to reading our news in your Twitter feed. Please come to https://oldergay.men and sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter, where you'll find everything you were seeing there, and more. There's always the chance that Twitter will turn around and we'll be back, but we're having a lot of fun together in the meantime. Come join us.

Jeff