The silver lining in this whole Twitter debacle is that I am forced to rethink social media. Twitter was never perfect, but talented people were working hard to make the platform safer. People with a deep commitment to thinking about the impact of hate speech and stochastic terrorism. People who were willing to engage with their teams around the pros and cons of actions for tweets or accounts that were breaking the Twitter TOS for harassment, doxing, use of personal images, and inciting violence. People are now being targeted by an army of activated trolls spurred on by the platform’s CEO.
This rapid devolution of Twitter has been a wild ride. I never thought a large-scale corporation could change so quickly. Elon’s anti-worker leanings and attention seeker behavior are powerful tools for destruction. Part of me pops on Twitter to see the crumbling.
One of the things I notice about Elon Musk is that he seems to think about human behavior in the most simplistic terms, as though we are all SIMS programmed with a very simple set of motivations. He decries authoritarianism and says he is a champion of free speech and yet treats employees, users, and advertisers like we must bend to his will. He expects little or no resistance to the changes he makes. In fact, he expects hero worship. And he is getting it from a very violent fringe movement - Qanon. But even this group doesn’t always do what he expects. They immediately tested his commitment to free speech by flooding the platform with the worst of the hate speech.
Elon’s idea of a paid blue badge also led to unexpected results. He was mocked and pranked. The limits of impersonation were tested. Now, a Twitter Blue badge is terrible from a branding perspective. Again, he seemed blindsided that people didn’t embrace his idea. Accounts pranked twitter by testing the limits of impersonation revealing the flaws in Twitter Blue and Elon’s “commitment” to comedy and free speech. More advertisers fled the platform. Without the ability to understand persuasion, he now promises to punish users who are not paying for Twitter Blue with no visibility as though making Twitter worse will incentivize conversions to Twitter Blue. He doesn’t seem to consider that we aren’t limited to two choices: buy Twitter Blue or be chained to a poor experience on Twitter. The funny thing is, I would have subscribed to Twitter Blue to increase the visibility of the writers we publish on Tangled Locks Journal. But now, is too toxic.
His Twitter Files PR stunt fed selective information to a couple of people who then repackaged it. He has activated a mob to threaten Yoel Roth, a former employee by posting misleading excerpts from his thesis. One thing he does seem to be very aware of, is that the QANON crowd won’t bother to read the actual information he posts which actually does not support his claims of First Amendment Violations.
Elon expects advertisers to believe that he is addressing safety issues in spite of the fact that he almost immediately reinstated accounts with serious TOS violations LibsofTikTok, ye, Andrew Tate to name a few. He increases the visibility of people who use hate speech. Elon claims he is committed to removing bots but ignores those amplifying his tweets. He is harassing people. He has posted Nazi images, images of misogyny, antisemitism, and attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. He blames liberals for Twitter’s loss of advertisers.
Each failure to predict the behaviors of users and advertisers is met with more reactivity.
Pulling away from Twitter is difficult. I have loved the communities I have engaged with on Twitter: #WritingCommunity, #BlackTwitter, and #Resistance. I created lists and systems to follow topics that I am interested in. I was always first to know the news and could connect with others. Not all of this is replaceable yet. There are also other considerations. As someone who uses my own name, leaving Twitter will free up my name. I don’t trust that it won’t be picked up and misused. I don’t trust that Twitter 2.0 would do anything about that.
So here’s what I am doing. I’ve removed the Twitter App from my phone to begin to break the habit. I have significantly reduced my time on Twitter. Suddenly I have more time to write. When I do log on, I have changed how I engage. I use my lists rather than letting the algorithm curate the content I see. I no longer get my news from Twitter I block heavily without engaging anyone exhibiting abusive behavior or hate speech. There is a new claim is that you are unwilling to debate ideas if you block heavily. Call me a snowflake but I’ve never had a decent debate with someone posting hateful memes, using slurs and insults, doxing, or calling upon an army of bots to harass me. I block manually but I suspect that 3-party blocking apps will be on the chopping block.
Elon is terraforming Twitter into a far-right paradise. Does the world need another Gab, TruthSocial, or Parler? Maybe, but I don’t. As much as Elon and the far-right trolls say “Leave or block us,” it’s pretty clear that they don’t find the echo chambers of hate very entertaining either. I suspect it’s not because of the loss of lively debate but because there are no libs to harass and bully.
Twitter isn’t essential. New spaces are emerging. I never knew there were so many platforms. I’ve tested out a few and I am settling into engaging with the community on the ones that are the best fit for me. You can still find me on Twitter occasionally but you can also find me on Post.News and Mastodon.