RIP Twitter, 2006-2022: Death by Elon Musk
I started my Twitter account in January 2013 at the urging of a friend. Just days before, I’d published my first national article in the New York Times, and the feedback came in tidal waves: emails from strangers, messages on Facebook, countless shares.
knew nothing about Twitter, the now ubiquitous social media platform that had launched seven years earlier (that’s the flip side of being firmly entrenched in Generation X). I opened an account and the rest was history.
For the past ten years I’ve cultivated my own little Twitter world, which is now verified with a coveted blue check. At its best, Twitter was a place where people like me, a journalist, could feel sorry for like-minded people. It was a place to share ideas and work, a place to be funny and sarcastic, and even a place to seek solace from people who shared my outlook on life.
At its worst, Twitter was the enemy of the people. It was no coincidence that former US President Donald Trump switched to Twitter rather than Instagram when he wanted to upset his base.
Twitter, with its character limit (280 characters — though it was half that when the platform launched) allows for half-hearted thoughts and quick-fire communications, for impulsive ideas that can get stuck without context.
The platform was designed for verbal dynamite. Fire off a tweet and watch it explode. The best tweets were punchy and cute, full of rhythm and technique. The worst reduced human nature to a few simple keystrokes.
Of course, that’s where Twitter went awry, and somewhere in the fulcrum of bad ideas, a red-hot right-wing movement emerged. Over the last few years we – I’m not sure who “we” really are, apart from those of us who wish for a more functioning society – have tried to correct the worst impulses that have been unleashed on this part of the internet. Trump was booted off the platform, along with so many others (most recently: the artist formerly known as Kanye).
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The suspended Twitter account of former US President Donald Trump at the White House residence in Washington DC. Photo: Reuters/Joshua Roberts
But now that Elon Musk is taking the helm – for real this time – and embarking on a series of layoffs, it’s time to say goodbye to the social media platform that once was. It’s not as if our better angels ever really got over the really despicable parts of the Twitterverse (I challenge anyone who isn’t Jewish to sink a day into replies to just one viral tweet about Kanye West’s anti-Semitic tweets, to get a sense of how gross Twitter is and always has been).
Musk doesn’t seem to understand the correlation between language and violence
Still, it was some consolation for some of us that some were disqualified from participating. It was a consolation that “freedom of speech” and “hate speech” were not disingenuously cross-referenced, as if uttering something destructive and horrific under a corporation’s private charter deserved equal protection.
Elon Musk is of course a right-wing extremist himself and has made no secret of his intentions. “I did it to help humanity,” Musk said in a tweet Thursday about his Twitter acquisition. “It is important for the future of civilization to have a virtual city square where a wide range of beliefs can be discussed in a healthy way without resorting to violence.”
I think Musk doesn’t seem to understand the correlate between language and violence — the necessary connection between what people say and what they do. I think he doesn’t understand that when it comes to certain types of language and beliefs are curbed, no violence will emanate from them.
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Actress Alyssa Milano started the #MeToo movement with a single tweet in October 2017. Photo: Getty
Twitter has had some great moments. Actress Alyssa Milano popularized the term #MeToo on Twitter in 2017. In 2016, Hillary Clinton went viral when she asked Donald Trump to delete his account.
Caitlyn Jenner re-introduced herself to the world on Twitter. Barack Obama posted a photo of himself and the former first lady: “Four more years.” read the caption from 2012. We had fun on Twitter. We watched crazy videos. We had to decide if a dress was blue and black or white and gold? I’m still not sure about that.
Twitter was also toxic. We’ve had to put up with a president who alienates people. For over four years, many of us held our breath to see what stream of nonsense came next.
In writing this obituary, it’s hard to find a tweet that is simultaneously completely offensive and also indicative of what Twitter was. Maybe it’s this one: “He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA,” Trump tweeted after the 2020 election. Trump continued to force his supporters to storm the Capitol. It wasn’t the healthy debate. However, it was a lot of violence.
Goodbye old friend. If you were good, you were funny. When you were evil you were a wormhole of trolls. When you leave this good world, we expect that your death will bring nothing but the demise of democracy.
https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/rip-twitter-2006-2022-dead-at-the-hands-of-elon-musk-42119138.html RIP Twitter, 2006-2022: Death by Elon Musk