Why I'm Leaving Social Media ...Possibly Forever.

I’ll try to keep this short and to the point as much as possible, but since this is my last public statement on social media, I would like to explain exacly why I’m leaving, so please bear with me…

In the summer of this year (2021), someone at Twitter marked our account as ineligible for ads due to a violation of their terms. They did not tell us what the violation was. We have reached out to their customer support and received a form letter stating that once your account gets marked this way, it will never again be eligible. At the time we were not running any ads, and none of the ads we’ve ever created violate any of their terms.

Around the same time, Facebook (which also owns Instagram) has marked our account as in violation of their terms and has limited account features. This means that despite having over 100k followers on Facebook, and over 50k followers on Instagram, our posts are seen by a very limited number of them. Our posts are also not searchable, and we are unable to promote posts using their paid advertising program. The reason they gave us was a series of posts in our Instagram account, featuring crime scene photographs, which were all marked as violating their terms by someone on their staff. They never gave us a chance to remove the violating content, but instead went through our timeline in quick succession over a 48-hour period in order to justify the ban. Some of the posts they marked as violating their terms had been posted almost a year prior and were no more graphic than many of the “crime scene cleanup” accounts we follow.

It’s quite evident that social media companies such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others have made a conscious decision to use their platforms to promote a political agenda, rewarding certain types of political discourse and silencing others. They have not tried to hide their actions, and instead seem emboldened to do so. Social media has become a powerful tool for the extreme fringes of society to parade as normality and influence the ignorant masses.

We have spent years and tens of thousands of marketing dollars cultivating our social media accounts, only to have these tyrants forcibly limit us from reaching our own audience. At this point, we are really quite sick of the double standard, and feel that we can no longer be part of this corrupt system.  Social media, as we currently know it, has become an echo chamber for the far left, and a breeding ground for cancel culture. This is a far cry from the early promises and hopes it held for bringing those with disparate ideas around the world closer together through open dialog. Social media has failed us all and only caused further division by alienating anyone that disagrees with the allowed narrative. As a result, we are shutting down our social media accounts effective immediately, until a more equal, free and fair system is in place that respects its own users and does not stifle their free speech.

In the meantime, we will continue to build out the +PLUS platform we have built (swordandscale.com/plus) in order to be able to communicate with our existing listeners. I know our exit means nothing. We are but a minor nuisance to the goliaths in power, but I have faith that perhaps some day, once the final line is crossed, the masses will finally wake up and the #TheReckoning will begin with a mass exodus of legacy social media, and a brighter future for all.