Bad Poetry: The Death of Social Media?

"Anyone can talk to anyone,"

We said, when Twitter used to flourish.

"Each one decides what to welcome or to shun."

Such rules could nourish

Conversations lively, conversations lame,

Mere vulgarisms,

The comfort of greetings every day the same,

Loyalties or schisms,

Insults exchanged with giggles or with tears

By children learning

The rules of conversation with their peers,

Effect discerning,

And messages from distant friends,

Soldier or student,

Flirtations, or friendships, or quarrels, too,

Foolish or prudent.

People were free to be themselves,

And for a writer,

Hundreds of people being themselves--

What prospect's brighter?

Much could be learned of politics

By politicians;

Of marketing, and even public health,

By statisticians.

But censorship threw up its ugly head;

Foreigners, greedy

For profits gained from the worst kind of fraud,

Claimed they were needy

Of censorship to pamper feelings of 

Snowflakes so special

That they were hurt by any word or none

Of all things racial.

Now no one talks to anyone

On censored Twitter;

For only the corporations' speech,

Strident and bitter,

Has opportunities to reach

Those who would follow

Friends, kin, writers or politicians,

The deep, the shallow.

And corporate messages are nothing new;

With scorn, derision,

We note that we had heard them all before

On television.

The corporations pay to own the airwaves,

Drool on lips glistening;

How long before they notice that

Nobody's listening?