Clay Travis said that the typical Twitter user votes D+15, which is about as liberal as Vermont. The typical blue checkmark Twitter user (who puts out about 90% of all content) leans something like D+40, which is about as liberal as Brooklyn. Or Brooklyn Dad Defiant.
Twitter has basically become the mechanism for our enforced consensus that really does give the marching orders to culture, media and the Democratic Party.
Any pushback against this enforced orthodoxy is labeled as "hate speech." Things like disagreeing that the patriarchy exists is labeled as misogynistic and therefore is out of bounds.
On the right side of the Overton Window, the scope of acceptable discussion is narrowing, while on the left side of the window, it is widening.
The left is petrified of losing this ability to dictate which arguments are socially acceptable and which ones are not. Which is what the ululating about Musk on the left is all about.
The left isn't really worried about hate speech. It is worried that it will lose the ability to apply that label as a weapon to define the acceptable boundaries of social discourse.
It's bizarre to me the coverage of this. One month ago Twitter was a cesspool! Now everyone's freaking out like it was some sort of perfectly moderated paradise.
1. People are blinded by their hate of billionaires. Most of them conspiracy theorists. The only difference between the left and right conspiracists is that on the right side the Evil Billionaire overlords secretly running everything happen to be Jews. The left just see them as secular. So progress?
2. People don't like change.
Also a certain number of people thought they were winning by banning people from twitter. Let's walk through that. If you think ideas that are that bad are that contagious then you also have to hold the opinion that your average human being is a dimwitted animal not capable of holding an original thought in their own heads. You can't see people as both rational individuals and be against expansive free speech! Heaton has talked about this some. Making bad ideas go away from twitter doesn't make bad ideas go away. It just means those bad ideas are now in a place where you can't keep an eye on them.
As for Twitter. I hope that Musk comes through with making the algorithm open source. Not sure how much you or your readers are into PC gaming. If not you should be. Because of one thing... MODS! When you make code open and available (or even when you don't) really creative people get to doing really fun things... for free! Or at a low cost. Making the algorithm open source and then hackable opens up an insane amount of creativity when it comes to your own personal curation. Which is how curation should work in this space. Twitter should be mod-able. People should have complete control over their own feeds. Not just a mute or block buttons but a whole suite of "if-thens". Following Andrew Heaton on Twitter shouldn't fill my feed with Ben Shapiro, and Marjory taylor green (or whatever her name is. I'm not bothering to look it up).
A lot of people don't like that though because they've already figured out how to trick twitter. That's the REAL fear. the Real fear is that the last decade of study in SEO and social media optimization through keyword usage and cunning copywriting might become a lot more complicated. That sounds like a lot more work for those people that rely on the algorithm to do their work for them. They'd actually have to go back to relying on the quality of their content to get shares! The HORROR!
Just one thing - I don't believe that user verification would have any meaningful outputs. At first - it doesn't work - in my home country (Czech republic - basically working democratic central european country) many newspapers webs started requiring verification of users (either by slow mail or by text message) to allow them commenting on their articles. The result is that moderate people mostly stopped commenting because they don't want to either go through this verification process or they just find it too complicated for just adding a comment in "great article" style, while idiots are willing to go through this and are even proud of their name being associated with a bullsh*t comment (and some of the newspapers also show the town you are from, so it's more clear that it's you and not some other guy with the same name from different part of the country).
And - I'm not talking about privacy issues - it's no accident that authoritarian countries like Russia are doing the same thing for really one reason - and while now we can feel that everything is so so (except the pitchfork-and-torches-type mobs on tw), no one says that these verified comments won't become handy later.
This is right to me, "Users should have to verify their identity before they can share content and have their content shared." Or else it would be right if not for a couple of factors.
The first is that the Democratic Party at the hands of the "new left" (Evergreen College takes over the country) has become not just completely broken with nothing to sell but fear, but a dehumanizing, censorious, authoritarian force. I am much more worried about what they're going to do in power right now than I am whatever Musk plans to do.
I am an early internet adopter. I was here in 1994, probably before you were born. I was here before there was even a working web. I was here before blogs wrecked newspapers. And yes, before Facebook and Twitter wrecked everything else. The internet used to be a great place. I'm not so sure connecting this many people at once at a time when there are more people on the planet than there ever has been is a good thing.
But here's what I know about Twitter as a user since 2007 - it was already ruined when they banned Trump. It isn't that I support Trump. It's that the power base in this country showed that even the POTUS isn't really in charge. They are. They are the alliance of social media, big media, big money and now, government. They didn't have government because Trump was essentially a wild card they could not control. They don't like that they can't control Musk either. So whatever they're going to do next is what scares me. People don't care me. Words on a screen are just words.
In the old days you could simply leave a space you didn't like or that was infested with trolls. But Twitter is the defacto thought-police such that it cripples almost everyone and everything that used to feel free. With Trump gone, it gave way too much power to one hive mind and they policed every inch of our culture to ensure compliance. THAT is what has to be broken up so that comedians can tell good jokes again, great movies can be made again. We can't survive this way. America is not designed to be an authoritarian country.
The Democrats or the left are so afraid of letting the "rabble" in. Their fear over his takeover is a reminder of just fragile and fearful they have become of half the country.
One thing that I think helps clarify the debate for me --
We don't tend to view what happened to Justine Saccos* through a free speech lens, but as far as I can tell, that's because the people that criticized her weren't coded as right-wing.
Do you think Twitter should change to make this sort of thing less likely in the future?
I'm glad you took another swing at this topic Jeff - this one benefitted from a more nuanced viewpoint. Having said that, I wonder if there was one other aspect that should be considered - the financial incentive of success in this arena. I wouldn't want to let slip any pledged allegiance to Marx or anything but, in a world where the majority of kids want to grow up to be "influencers", and the consequence of one poorly worded tweet can be a literal career, I don't think we can dismiss the role of capitalism in all this. If you could take money (and the power over others it buys) out of the equation, I just think people will still speak freely, but be less motivated to be outrageous. The value of free speech is no longer just democratic, but is very economic now. And surely that must contribute to all the crossed-wire discussions we're having now about what 'free speech' should look like in a free society?
Well articulated. I agree completely. Except for the part about you being the decider with a free parking pass. That job should of course go to me.
But other than that error, you've partially redeemed yourself after leveling deranged and wholly unwarranted insults against Tulsi Gabbard, who possesses more integrity and wisdom than probably any other recent congressperson.
Great piece as usual. Social media is never going to make the aforementioned Philadelphia Eagles fans suddenly morph into the social/intellectual equivalent of Ivy League grads at the latest TED talk-but the Ds act like this is doable and desirable. Trump, otoh, is basically one of the aforementioned Eagles fans-he even owned the USFL NJ Generals, and as such can appeal to them on their level of understanding!
Otherwise, great essay! I actually would love to see Facebook go back to a chronological feed. I don’t get much of the political/provocative crap in my feed, but I also don’t see nearly as much as I used to of what my friends are up to. (Maybe because they’re smarter than me and have walked away from FB.) Instead all I get is stupid ads that are either scarily on point (something I happened to mention out loud on the general vicinity of my phone) or completely off base (no, I do not want to buy myself a burka).
Clay Travis said that the typical Twitter user votes D+15, which is about as liberal as Vermont. The typical blue checkmark Twitter user (who puts out about 90% of all content) leans something like D+40, which is about as liberal as Brooklyn. Or Brooklyn Dad Defiant.
Twitter has basically become the mechanism for our enforced consensus that really does give the marching orders to culture, media and the Democratic Party.
Any pushback against this enforced orthodoxy is labeled as "hate speech." Things like disagreeing that the patriarchy exists is labeled as misogynistic and therefore is out of bounds.
On the right side of the Overton Window, the scope of acceptable discussion is narrowing, while on the left side of the window, it is widening.
The left is petrified of losing this ability to dictate which arguments are socially acceptable and which ones are not. Which is what the ululating about Musk on the left is all about.
The left isn't really worried about hate speech. It is worried that it will lose the ability to apply that label as a weapon to define the acceptable boundaries of social discourse.
It's bizarre to me the coverage of this. One month ago Twitter was a cesspool! Now everyone's freaking out like it was some sort of perfectly moderated paradise.
1. People are blinded by their hate of billionaires. Most of them conspiracy theorists. The only difference between the left and right conspiracists is that on the right side the Evil Billionaire overlords secretly running everything happen to be Jews. The left just see them as secular. So progress?
2. People don't like change.
Also a certain number of people thought they were winning by banning people from twitter. Let's walk through that. If you think ideas that are that bad are that contagious then you also have to hold the opinion that your average human being is a dimwitted animal not capable of holding an original thought in their own heads. You can't see people as both rational individuals and be against expansive free speech! Heaton has talked about this some. Making bad ideas go away from twitter doesn't make bad ideas go away. It just means those bad ideas are now in a place where you can't keep an eye on them.
As for Twitter. I hope that Musk comes through with making the algorithm open source. Not sure how much you or your readers are into PC gaming. If not you should be. Because of one thing... MODS! When you make code open and available (or even when you don't) really creative people get to doing really fun things... for free! Or at a low cost. Making the algorithm open source and then hackable opens up an insane amount of creativity when it comes to your own personal curation. Which is how curation should work in this space. Twitter should be mod-able. People should have complete control over their own feeds. Not just a mute or block buttons but a whole suite of "if-thens". Following Andrew Heaton on Twitter shouldn't fill my feed with Ben Shapiro, and Marjory taylor green (or whatever her name is. I'm not bothering to look it up).
A lot of people don't like that though because they've already figured out how to trick twitter. That's the REAL fear. the Real fear is that the last decade of study in SEO and social media optimization through keyword usage and cunning copywriting might become a lot more complicated. That sounds like a lot more work for those people that rely on the algorithm to do their work for them. They'd actually have to go back to relying on the quality of their content to get shares! The HORROR!
Just one thing - I don't believe that user verification would have any meaningful outputs. At first - it doesn't work - in my home country (Czech republic - basically working democratic central european country) many newspapers webs started requiring verification of users (either by slow mail or by text message) to allow them commenting on their articles. The result is that moderate people mostly stopped commenting because they don't want to either go through this verification process or they just find it too complicated for just adding a comment in "great article" style, while idiots are willing to go through this and are even proud of their name being associated with a bullsh*t comment (and some of the newspapers also show the town you are from, so it's more clear that it's you and not some other guy with the same name from different part of the country).
And - I'm not talking about privacy issues - it's no accident that authoritarian countries like Russia are doing the same thing for really one reason - and while now we can feel that everything is so so (except the pitchfork-and-torches-type mobs on tw), no one says that these verified comments won't become handy later.
This is right to me, "Users should have to verify their identity before they can share content and have their content shared." Or else it would be right if not for a couple of factors.
The first is that the Democratic Party at the hands of the "new left" (Evergreen College takes over the country) has become not just completely broken with nothing to sell but fear, but a dehumanizing, censorious, authoritarian force. I am much more worried about what they're going to do in power right now than I am whatever Musk plans to do.
I am an early internet adopter. I was here in 1994, probably before you were born. I was here before there was even a working web. I was here before blogs wrecked newspapers. And yes, before Facebook and Twitter wrecked everything else. The internet used to be a great place. I'm not so sure connecting this many people at once at a time when there are more people on the planet than there ever has been is a good thing.
But here's what I know about Twitter as a user since 2007 - it was already ruined when they banned Trump. It isn't that I support Trump. It's that the power base in this country showed that even the POTUS isn't really in charge. They are. They are the alliance of social media, big media, big money and now, government. They didn't have government because Trump was essentially a wild card they could not control. They don't like that they can't control Musk either. So whatever they're going to do next is what scares me. People don't care me. Words on a screen are just words.
In the old days you could simply leave a space you didn't like or that was infested with trolls. But Twitter is the defacto thought-police such that it cripples almost everyone and everything that used to feel free. With Trump gone, it gave way too much power to one hive mind and they policed every inch of our culture to ensure compliance. THAT is what has to be broken up so that comedians can tell good jokes again, great movies can be made again. We can't survive this way. America is not designed to be an authoritarian country.
The Democrats or the left are so afraid of letting the "rabble" in. Their fear over his takeover is a reminder of just fragile and fearful they have become of half the country.
There is a fantastic essay in Quillette laying out the different between decorum and moderation. https://quillette.com/2022/04/27/musk-and-moderation/
One thing that I think helps clarify the debate for me --
We don't tend to view what happened to Justine Saccos* through a free speech lens, but as far as I can tell, that's because the people that criticized her weren't coded as right-wing.
Do you think Twitter should change to make this sort of thing less likely in the future?
*
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html
I'm glad you took another swing at this topic Jeff - this one benefitted from a more nuanced viewpoint. Having said that, I wonder if there was one other aspect that should be considered - the financial incentive of success in this arena. I wouldn't want to let slip any pledged allegiance to Marx or anything but, in a world where the majority of kids want to grow up to be "influencers", and the consequence of one poorly worded tweet can be a literal career, I don't think we can dismiss the role of capitalism in all this. If you could take money (and the power over others it buys) out of the equation, I just think people will still speak freely, but be less motivated to be outrageous. The value of free speech is no longer just democratic, but is very economic now. And surely that must contribute to all the crossed-wire discussions we're having now about what 'free speech' should look like in a free society?
Well articulated. I agree completely. Except for the part about you being the decider with a free parking pass. That job should of course go to me.
But other than that error, you've partially redeemed yourself after leveling deranged and wholly unwarranted insults against Tulsi Gabbard, who possesses more integrity and wisdom than probably any other recent congressperson.
Bean Dad *wishes* can opener Tweets didn’t go viral
I want to marry Paula Fox!
Great piece as usual. Social media is never going to make the aforementioned Philadelphia Eagles fans suddenly morph into the social/intellectual equivalent of Ivy League grads at the latest TED talk-but the Ds act like this is doable and desirable. Trump, otoh, is basically one of the aforementioned Eagles fans-he even owned the USFL NJ Generals, and as such can appeal to them on their level of understanding!
Roger Murdoch? Did you mean Rupert?
Otherwise, great essay! I actually would love to see Facebook go back to a chronological feed. I don’t get much of the political/provocative crap in my feed, but I also don’t see nearly as much as I used to of what my friends are up to. (Maybe because they’re smarter than me and have walked away from FB.) Instead all I get is stupid ads that are either scarily on point (something I happened to mention out loud on the general vicinity of my phone) or completely off base (no, I do not want to buy myself a burka).