Forget Elon. Do We Need Twitter? Do We Want Twitter?
This seems like an opportune moment to talk about it.
Elon Musk has purchased Twitter, and a whole lot of people are quitting. They’re looking for a new place to go — Mastodon, Parler, T2, et al. — but nothing seems to be sticking. What will be the new alternative to Twitter?
I’m of the opinion that Twitter in particular, and social media as a whole, has done extensive damage to the social fabric and the long list of fields whose work the popular app has subsumed. These include most obviously: Journalism, Politics, Publishing, Activism, Education, the Social Sciences, Arts and Entertainment. Some days, it can look like those fields take place primarily on Twitter — that the real world which inspired and informed them has been abandoned in favor of its heavily mediated text-only depiction, crude as a shadow on the back of a cave wall. Explorers seated among the wonders of nature, staring intently at their maps while ignoring the territory. So much of the Twitter experience is people being mean and petty with each other. Many times each week it boils over into a severe mob incident — this ever-present danger that you’ll say the wrong thing and become the target of a million of the worst people on Earth trying to hurt you in the real world. Do we want this as part of our lives?
