Brent Simmons:

Our current crises of democracy and good faith did not just blow in with the wind and transform the air without our knowledge or consent.

These crises were made by people, and we knew what they were doing, and we agreed to this.

Jack Dorsey is one of those many people. Just one. But one with a kind of power that nobody in the world should have: the power to directly control a vast amount of the world’s communication.

It’s not that Dorsey failed to consider the good of the world. Or, really, it’s not just that. It’s that this kind of power should not exist at all.

But we agreed to it. We’re still agreeing to it.

Twitter — and Facebook, and the power of tech companies — is not our only problem.

But I have no doubt that had Twitter not become a loving home for hate, Trump would not be President now. In that universe we’d still have big problems, yes, but not like this.

Brent continues in the post to give recommendations for a few apps and services (including, of course, Micro.blog) that you can use to drop your reliance on big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter.