the problem with Twitter

As a fairly neutral observer — or perhaps better put — as a half-hearted Twitter tweeter at best, I’ve found it fascinating to watch the recent/current/whatever brouhaha surrounding the San Francisco-based microblogging/social media site. Please, for purposes of this discussion, remember the meaning of the word “fascinating”: “extremely interesting.” There exists no positive nor negative connotation. 

With the wealthiest person in the world purchasing the social networking service, people have had all sorts of opinions… 

“Musk is wrecking Twitter.”

“The aftermath of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has turned out to be quite tumultuous.”

“Is it time to quit Twitter?”

Elon Musk — founder of Zip2, SpaceX, product architect of Tesla and more — officially acquired Twitter on October 27th of this year. Immediately upon acquisition, he fired multiple top Twitter executives, changed subscription fees, and also laid off a notable percentage of existing staff.

In addition, he has seemingly boldly declared he wants the site to allow for free speech — suggesting sometimes subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly that such is not a current practice. “By ‘free speech,’” he says, “I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.” He added that “going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.”

With the manifestation of said declaration, Musk has also shared the release of various specific information, much which recently focused on questions surrounding the President’s second son, Hunter, and his ill-fated laptop. The nuances of that news can be found in greater detail elsewhere; the bottom line, as reported by Wikipedia, is that “three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election, the New York Post published a story presenting emails from the laptop and stating that they showed corruption by Joe Biden.” Twitter and Facebook admittedly suppressed said story, with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey saying later that blocking the story was “wrong.”

I don’t feel much need to pay more attention to the story — not that it’s not relevant nor that Twitter and Facebook’s suppression of said story isn’t significant; it simply isn’t the point of today’s post. There is zero desire to enflame any side or perspective.

Perhaps the site that said it best was actually the left-bias news source, MSNBC, which I believe sincerely posed the following, excellent question…

“Would scrapping Twitter benefit American Democracy?”

Their response was based most on Musk’s recent, allowed-to-be-published content and what perceived inappropriate speech — aka “tweets” — may now follow.

Allow me not to take a side one way or another on that. Again, at best, I’m a fair-weather Twitterer, tweeter, whatever. Allow me simply to say this…

Twitter allows 280 characters per tweet. That means whatever you have to say, however you want to say it, however passionate you are, no matter the issue, no matter the point, no matter the complexity of the issue, nor matter the sensitivity necessary to say it wisely and well, you have only 280 individual characters to say what you want to say. It’s the ultimate mic drop. The ultimate say what you want to say and walk away. In other words, it’s the keenest conversation killer. Who are we to think that this is a productive venue prior to any Elon Musk takeover? 

In fact better put, who are we to assume that this has ever been a healthy communication channel?

I like the words of journalist Nate Hochman. They pierce the partisanship of left and right. I also think they ring totally true: the “threat Twitter poses to our shared way of life is much more nonpartisan: an incentive structure that rewards hysteria and partisan bottle-service over nuance and serious intellectual engagement, echo chambers over cross-ideological conversation, and one-sentence dunks over good-faith debate.”

That’s the real problem with Twitter. It isn’t Elon Musk. It wasn’t Jack Dorsey. It’s mistaking serious intellectual debate for what is lesser… for what is so not good-faith. Good-faith conversation will always be better and right and true.

Respectfully…

AR