So, the news this week has been full of reports of Twitters impending demise following the mass layoffs, lockouts and other antics of its new owner Elon Musk. Now I’m no fan of Mr Musk, as a rule I despise people with messiah complexes and his is less of a complex and more of a state of being, but some of the views about Twitter’s potential demise have been truly hilarious in their hysteria. My own view? It’s a tool which in many ways has outlived its usefulness and I won’t shed a tear at its passing.
Let me explain.
There is no doubting that Twitter, as originally envisaged, was a great social media application which allowed a lot of people to connect with each other in ways they could not before. It was also arguably not as invasive in the data it gathered on you as Facebook and during lockdowns it probably helped a lot of people keep going. For me, as an occasional tweeter with no real following it was riven with problems, and it is for these reasons that I will not miss it.
Safety and safeguarding
Not going to beat about the bush here; almost all social media sites are appalling when it comes to safeguarding. Twitter is not the worst, I would lay that accolade on twitch, but the ease with which minors could not only create accounts but also access material ranging from the dubious to the downright horrific has undoubtedly caused harm. Likewise, the ease of account creation and the anonymity that you can have has allowed people to be threatened, abused and insulted with almost complete impunity. Footballers have received racist abuse for scoring, not scoring, being sent off, not being sent off. Authors and academics have been doxed and received death threats for daring to have a view and the number of arrests and prosecutions for this is the wrong side of farcical. So if Twitter goes down then loosing this will not be a loss to society,
The destruction of the echo chamber
There is nothing better than being told you are right; it gives a little rush and thrill which is addictive, and everyone enjoys it. Conversely not many people like being told they are wrong, and Twitter had become an avenue for people to build massive echo chambers. Because you chose who to follow you could find people who shared your views, which is fine in and off itself as that’s a community and a relatively safe space, but long term it has risks. If you spend your time around people agreeing with your every word, liking every comment and sharing your views then you begin to think you are infallible. If everyone agrees with your comments, then you must be right in your view and this is my biggest single issue with Twitter. It allows echo chambers which stifle debate and encourage dogpiling.
Take the Just Stop Oil movement. Now whatever your views on them (my own are the ideal they want is laudable, the goals they work towards impossible and their methods deplorable) there is no doubt that there is a debate to be had here. Twitter though does not allow that debate. Followers of the group allow no dissension to their view and those who disagree refuse to allow that some of the points being raised may be valid. The result is a slanging match which then spills over into real life as evidenced by the cringeworthy interview which Indigo Rumblelow gave. When someone did not immediately agree with her view, as no doubt her echo chamber does, she was unable to present rational and reasoned arguments and instead became a shrieking hysterical harpy with a passion for hyperbole. Contrast that with Sir David Attenborough who presents his arguments in a reasoned, considered and mild way and you see the difference. I could see Sir David engaged in a passioned and intellectual debate but Miss Rumblelow? Not a chance.
The other element of this is the dogpiling. JK Rowling is a perfect example of this. Now I have never been a fan of her or her written works, I consider them mediocre at best but the abuse she receives for her view on what is a woman is unacceptable to me. I think some of her comments have perhaps skirted the line and she deserve critique but the dogpiling from staunch trans rights supports hasn’t skirted the line; it has destroyed it. Twitter facilitates this as one person with a big following starts a pogrom and the algorithm allows it to gain traction so before you know it you have an unpleasant pile on. Its distasteful, needless and ultimately damaging to the cause it represents.
Debate is great but Twitter has made it almost impossible to be a naysmith in some communities and as a result it has crushed the capacity for rationale, reasoned and effective debate.
Bots and fake news
There is no denying it, social media allows all sorts of nonsense to be peddled as fact. Now internet forums always did this, but the thing was that you had to go and look for those forums; but with Twitter you don’t. If enough people use a hashtag, then the algorithm pushes it up and more people see it and it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle. Some of the nonsense which Donald Trump peddles is proof of this. In the pre-twitter days it would not gain a platform and be dismissed to the darkest corner of internet forums but now? It becomes mainstream and because so many people then endorse it, and people seem to have lost the ability to critically think and question (maybe the 5 w approach of who, what, when, where and why isn’t taught anymore) people take it as gospel and off we go. Factor in an increasing number of people who are only able to articulate their thoughts in hyperbole (physical or written) and it is easy to see how this is a problem. Twitters’ fact checking was a joke and had clear inconsistencies and inherent bias built into it; so this drove the views that people who believed there was a conspiracy and you get some of the lashing out that has resulted in some terrible atrocities.
The absolutely garbage user verification system also allowed bots and spam accounts to proliferate. This drove the algorithm to throw up certain things and promote certain views. Critics of Brexit for example argue that it was this kind of thing which swung the referendum and subsequent general elections. It didn’t. What did was a poorly presented argument to remain which neglected its best arguments, resorted to scare tactics and whose followers were to lazy to vote until after the dye was cast. It proves the point though. There is evidence that botting did drive certain results in the algorithm and this I will accept had an influence.
So the end?
It remains to be seen if Twitter will actually die and certainly none of the rivals are quite as user friendly. Mastodon, Instagram, tumblr all have issues and whilst I like discord (especially when a server has effective moderation; something twitter lacked) it is not as easy to use as Twitter is. If it does die though then how will it be judged by history? For me it will be a warning of the dangers of creating a tool which allows people to see just what they want to see without forcing them to consider that there is merit in seeing the words of people who disagree with you.
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