I don’t need to expand on how Internet and social media have shifted the paradigm for professional discussion. You know this!

Painful it is, but I wanted to share that I have decided to close my Twitter/X account. I will miss you tweeps. But... see you soon elsewhere!

I started to build a network on Twitter in 2009, exploring this new channel for communication about research and medicine. Twitter was different then, compared to what X has become. In the earlier years, Twitter impersonated open, high-level and cross-professional discussions. Despite different opinions shared, the feed was a friendly gathering. If you posted something seemingly controversial (or something not at all controversial about Covid-19, liberal democracy values, suffering among immigrants, or aggressive warfare), people commented in a respectful manner. You did not get a load of automated bot replies (from "verified accounts" with like ~10 followers) telling you were a moron and should XYZ!

Importantly, #NeoTwitter, #NeoEBM and #foamneo all grew into valuable resources. I am so grateful for connecting with you and other wonderful people there. It has indeed enriched my professional life, and often made me think twice.

With X and the new leadership by Musk et al (btw, is there even an “al”?), I have simply taken the consequence of not compromising with my values. That’s why I will delete my X account soon, after saying good bye to comrades there. The principal reason is that I don’t want to contribute to a communication platform where hate speech, conspiracy theories, and fake news is given this much space. The world of today is complicated enough as it is.

Although my own feed is still pretty OK, I feel that sharing a communication platform with the “dark side” (and don’t underestimate the force of it), implies that my presence there, as a person and as a professional, legitimate the bad stuff. In fact, this might even be an intentional business strategy of the X management team.

There is certainly some “alternative cost” to rebuild a neonatal network on a new platform. But I am fine with that. For myself, this is a step worth taking to get rid off the feeling that I am also, to some symbolic extent, feeding the trolls on X.

For the time being, I will stick to LinkedIn, while hoping to rebuild a network feed on our NICUVERSE Mastodon-server and/or on Bluesky. So, might see you there

And of course, maybe the future holds a renaissance for 99nicu.org with its older-school web site-based discussions.

Please note that this is a personal decision and about my own Tw/X account. However, within the 99nicu Team, we are also discussing an X-it strategy, but we need to make sure we have the organization's best interest in mind. And, with our upcoming conference, we may choose to keep the 99nicu account up and running to for sharing the word about our conference plans. After all, #NeoTwitter is still a great place for reaching out.

Thanks to the Verge for making the graphics illustrating this post