I know they can’t control people who obviously feel so terrible about themselves that they use this as their outlet to abuse other users, but boy would Twitter be a nicer place to be if they did the things suggested in this article I linked to below. I have never seen people behave in public the way that abusive users behave online, because I’m sure they know it’s socially unacceptable and would never do it. Obviously, they feel their “freedom of expression” means people have no choice but to listen to them. If they said these things in public, people would just turn around and walk away from them. On the internet, they know it’s harder for people to tune them out. At the moment on Twitter, the only choice is to ignore it or spend way too much time reporting them, or find a third party software to help maintain what we don’t want or need to see. Just having a way to mass control the @ mentions would be huge! Also, to be able to report a hashtag so Twitter could just see all the @ mentions coming from the hashtag and going toward one user (like the hundreds at a time I would get) so they can monitor the abuse all at once instead of the user needing to report each account individually. Because you know what keeps me away? It’s all the people who don’t follow me but do follow a hashtag and see where everyone is being shitty, then show up in my mentions to be part of the problem for the sake of being part of something, and I was tired of giving them a platform to access me to do this. If you want to be part of something, do yourself a favor and be part of a charity organization or volunteering to help people or animals in need. THAT is something you can be part of that actually does some good.

Article at slate.com

*Sidenote: I have received several emails from people who think I am back on Twitter because they can see my profile again. I am not using Twitter at all. I just locked my account so my user name isn’t released to the public.

This morning I woke up and realized I will be in Florida one month from today, along with hundreds and hundreds of nerds, about to embark on the 6th annual JocoCruiseCrazy. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. And if you’ve wanted to go but didn’t want to go to the Caribbean, they just made an announcement for 2017 that I bet you’re going to love!

One of the ports on the last two cruises was to Haiti. It’s a really pretty place but there’s one thing I hadn’t thought of until AFTER the first cruise there. When you visit a third world country such as this one, you can’t donate blood for a year after the date you return home. This means I haven’t been able to donate for TWO YEARS. I was really disappointed because although I don’t donate blood as often as I could, I did always make sure to do it on or near my birthday because celebrating the years I’ve been alive is a reminder that there are so many people whose life may depend on getting a blood transfusion. The best gift, I feel, is to give to these people in need.

If you have never donated red blood cells, plasma, or platelets before, here are a few facts (According to the American Red Cross) about it that may help you to understand how much it helps others:

-Every two seconds, someone in the U.S. needs blood.

-One donation can save up to three people.

-Approximately 41,000 donations are needed every day.

-A healthy donor may donate platelets every 7 days, up to a maximum of 24 times a year.

-A healthy donor may donate red blood cells every 56 days.

-Only nine percent of people in the U.S. have O negative blood type. O negative blood type donors are universal donors as their blood type can be given to people of all blood types.

-Three percent of people in the U.S. have AB positive blood type (THAT’S ME!!). AB positive donors are universal donors of plasma, which is often used in emergencies, for newborns and for patients requiring massive transfusions.

If you’re a healthy person who is able to donate blood, I highly recommend doing so. And if  you attended the last JoCo cruise, you are finally able to donate as of February 8th! There are wonderful organizations that are able to take your donation. Just use the handy tool called the internet and find a place near you. I choose to donate to City of Hope in Duarte, CA. They saved the life of my friend who has leukemia and I know the patients there are people like her, who need life saving blood, plasma, platelets, and bone marrow donations from healthy people like me. If you’re interested in becoming a bone marrow donor,  you can go here and follow the easy steps on how to get on the national registry. I haven’t been matched with anyone yet, but I really hope I get the opportunity someday!

Several years ago, Wil signed up with this thing called Twitter. He joined it on the third day of its release at the encouragement of our friend, Sean Bonner. Sean could tell it was going to change the world, and he was right.

The world became a smaller place thanks to Twitter. Soon, Wil was in touch with friends from all over the world on a daily basis and got to meet new people along the way. Wil loved saying funny things or making up jokes to post there and after a few years, it seemed like a fun thing to do so I joined it as well.

In the four years since I joined Twitter I learned a lot. I discovered a whole community of people I had never met before but had a shared interest in the same things I loved. I made friends in real life with many people I had only interacted with online, and that was really cool. I told silly jokes and shared the joy I found in the little things in life. Then for the first time back in April, I discovered a whole other community of people I would never have around me in real life because they were pretty terrible. It was at that time that I had to use the mute and/or block feature and had to report dozens and dozens of accounts. In the years before then, I think I had muted maybe a handful of people. That was really a bummer for me, but I tried to just focus on the fun of it all and stayed on it. I also liked to be on Twitter to read about important news events or to have discussions with sensible people about things that mattered to me; working with charities, my love of rescue animals, women’s health, being a mom, a wife, etc. I continued to focus on the positive, even ending 2015 by asking people to tell me about awesome stuff that happened to them that year, and getting back hundreds of wonderful responses. I loved that and tried to hold onto that in staying on the social media site.

In real life, I stand up for myself. If someone says or does something to me or someone around me, I do something about it. As my online presence grew,  there were people who don’t follow me showing up to say something horrible about me, my husband, or my children. Yes, they can be muted, blocked, or reported, and I was doing that all the time, every day. Sometimes I responded because like I said, in real life I stand up for myself so occasionally, I will do that online. But after a while, it’s like trying to smile and have a pleasant conversation with a kind person in a room full of people screaming hateful things in your face. You can ignore it but eventually, it just isn’t worth even talking at all and you just have to walk out of that room to protect yourself.

I chose to be on Twitter. I am not a celebrity. I am a middle-aged woman who’s a retired hairdresser who now runs a non-profit, is on the Board of Directors at Pasadena Humane Society, has a house FULL of rescue animals, and has two wonderful boys. I do not have a job I need to promote, nor am I looking for a job to take on. I have a full life with an amazing husband and family, wonderful friends, and a successful business I run. If something I choose to do on the side isn’t fun, I need to walk away from it because my free time is pretty scarce. Twitter used to be the fun thing I did on the side, and for the most part, it just isn’t fun anymore, so I need to walk away from it and that’s okay.

I deleted my Twitter account last night and immediately felt relieved. I will miss the tweety buddies who were awesome that I don’t know in real life. I will continue to stay in touch with my friends around the world by phone or by my private Facebook account. Instagram has been fun so far so I’m keeping that for now, but when it isn’t fun anymore, that will go too. I like having a blog but who knows if I’ll keep this around. We’ll see. Life is what we make of it. I want my life to be filled with happiness, surrounded by people I love. It doesn’t need to be about awful people having access to me online and labeling it as “freedom of speech” which is why I removed that from my life. We don’t know how long we have on this Earth so I’d like to maximize my time with things that are positive. I think that is time well spent.