With Elon Musk trying to buy Twitter, it’s likely to become more hostile for people like me. So why am I not leaving?

Thirteen years ago, I sat in a courtroom in New Haven, Conn., on the first day of jury selection for the trial of one of two men accused of the home invasion murders of a mother and her daughters in a nearby suburb of Cheshire.

The killings captured national attention, and as a columnist for the Hartford Courant at the time, I was there to observe as prospective jurors were questioned about their backgrounds and potential biases.

It can be a long, tedious process — and in a case that was noteworthy for its brutality, an emotional one as well. At one point, I pulled out my phone to note some observations on Twitter, which reporters in my circles were just beginning to use.

The feedback was instantaneous, and while that was obviously the point, the immediacy still caught me off guard: There were real people on the other end of this thing, I recall thinking, and they were eager to engage.

Anyone who has used Twitter regularly has one of these stories, the moment when they realized the power of the platform. For me, it was not only a chance to connect with readers but also a way to educate those hungry for details about the case and the judicial process.

By the end of that trial, the courtroom was packed with live-tweeting local and national reporters as they, in the words of the New York Times, took live-blogged trial reporting “to a new and furious level.”

I’ve thought a lot about how I came to Twitter lately, and why I’ve stayed, despite the near-daily harassment and threats and hostility. (“You’re a scumbag,” according to one of my latest interactions on the site.)

Civil discourse has long been the biggest casualty on the platform — and that was before a problematic billionaire touting freedom of speech reached an agreement to buy the site.

As right-wing users cheer the news of Elon Musk’s deal to purchase Twitter (and eagerly await the probably inevitable return of the former Tweeter-in-Chief), many of us who are part of communities that have long been marginalized expect the platform to become more hostile. Many women and people of color, in particular, have expressed their intentions to leave, if they haven’t already.

I actually think of leaving Twitter nearly every day. Increasingly, it’s become a niche echo chamber of self-promotion. And if my fellow journalists and I should be about the business of meeting the communities we serve where they are (as I believe we should), the most effective way to do so is probably not on the site; barely a quarter of American adults say they use Twitter.

And yet, I not only remain — for now anyway — but find myself penning this defense of the often-indefensible site.

Trust me, I’m just as surprised as you are.

Despite its myriad disadvantages, including its dangerous platforming of disinformation, Twitter has democratized information-sharing and provided a platform for voices that yearned to be heard.

It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that Twitter’s shorthand hashtags — which highlighted everything from police brutality (#BlackLivesMatter) to sexual harassment (#MeToo) to lack of inclusion and diversity (#OscarsSoWhite) to marriage equality (#LoveWins) — changed the way we communicate about social issues. (Whether they’ve actually brought about lasting change is another story.)

And for each of those high-profile causes, there were many other smaller ones that found support on local levels, including some of my own.

While I am privileged to have the kind of platform afforded by a newspaper column, I have no doubt that my modest Twitter following allowed me to grow my #FillTheSteps initiative, where for five years I called on Philadelphians to gather in front of the Art Museum to speak out against gun violence.

Same with my Pop-Up Newsroom effort, which allowed me to use social media to bolster on-the-ground reporting.

The flip side of that positive community interest, of course, calls to mind one of the biggest drawbacks of Twitter: the hate.

Long before someone could tweet their racism or sexism or death threats directly to their target of choice, there were the slower, less direct modes of communication.

For years, women journalists, especially of color, like myself were expected to absorb the threats and harassment through phone calls and emails. Before that, the vitriol was carried in letters received in the silence and anonymity of the U.S. mail. Meanwhile, others, usually white men who were often in the very same newsrooms, had the luxury of being blissfully unaware. Part of the job. Buck up. Happens to everyone.

It wasn’t until I, and many other journalists, began to share the hate we received on these platforms that the general public began to appreciate the level of toxicity — and the disparity of the danger — that some of us dealt with every day. Now those most affected need more support and protection.

But it’s not just about journalists, who seem to have an outsized presence on Twitter. It’s about all kinds of vulnerable people who were suddenly able to access a public platform to broadcast their own stories, and their own realities, a few hundred characters at a time.

Look, the reality is this: Even in 2022, there are still too many spaces in this world where women, people of color, and others are excluded or not properly represented. We have to fight our way in — and continue to slug it out to stay there.

So walking away from any potentially influential space, including Twitter, feels a little like surrender. (Also, I suspect that those quickest to leave have the luxury of having other avenues to be seen and heard.)

If I’m being honest, these days the benefits of Twitter for me barely outweigh the disadvantages. It’s why I’ve scaled back the time I spend on the site as I reconcile how best to use it moving forward.

“Trying to figure out Twitter,” I wrote in my first tweet in 2009.

All these years later, I still am.