A couple months ago, I deleted the Twitter app from my phone. The space where the little blue bird-turned-X once sat has been empty since. I’ve used BlueSky (@novicsara.bsky.social) a bit, but I haven’t found a real Twitter replacement. I still haven’t deleted my account, though, in part because I’ve been hoping maybe it will somehow become a useable platform again.

It sounds silly, but Twitter was important to me. It was a place I went to follow breaking news, as many did, but also where I met so many brilliant activists, thinkers and teachers, especially deaf/disabled ones. I am sorry to see that meeting place go, particularly for communities who usually have no physical spaces to call our own.

This past week, as we watched a gruesome and expansive terrorist attack orchestrated by Hamas, and the retaliatory slaughter of stranded Gazans by Israeli bombing campaigns, I turned to social media (Instagram this time) as a place to learn and interact with others. But something had changed. Or I had changed, I’m not sure. There was so much yelling, and so little empathy.

I tried to engage. I reposted information, wrote statements of solidarity with Jewish people in the wake of the attacks and the widespread antisemitism that followed, and expressed fear and sadness over the displacement and killing of Palestinians. I shared my frustration over the endless, looping assertions that murdered children justify more murdered children, that grief should be wielded as a weapon.