If you sleep with dogs you get fleas. That old saying comes to mind as I think about my continued use of the sewer that is social media site Twitter.
It’s now called X, but this will undoubtedly go down as one of the most expensive rebranding flops of all time.
For quite some time, I have tried to ignore all the warning signs: the abuse and disinformation I see every time I visit the platform. And more broadly, and without wanting to overstate it, I see its owner, Elon Musk, using it to make the world a more dangerous place. The algorithms under Musk’s control have turned up the volume of extreme political rhetoric to shrieking levels.
We used to use Twitter to find out what was going on. Who was born, who died. Who was celebrated, who was backstabbed. What the politicians were up to. Who delighted the masses that day with a clever tweet that eventually went “viral.” We’d open Twitter while watching a show like Eurovision to see what other people were thinking, if we had a chance to voice our opinion, and pore over how many interactions there were. Twitter has given everyone an outlet to voice their opinion, broadening our experience in ways that were previously unimaginable.
I joined in December 2010. It was my first encounter with hashtags. Those were innocent days. I started at the urging of a family member who said it was necessary for their work. Instantly, I was reluctantly hooked. For journalists, hashtags were seen as a way to stay on top of the latest developments, as well as a way to establish a professional identity separate from the person signing their weekly paycheck. At one point, the number of social media followers a journalist had was seen as an added layer of their overall credibility to “legacy” media employers. The site, with its ability to send DMs (direct messages) from other users, was where news could be reported and, indeed, discovered.
Over the years, there has been a lot of heart-warming stuff there. People have come together for all sorts of reasons, from pleas to keep an eye on an elderly parent with dementia who has disappeared from home to the disappearance of a beloved teddy bear that fell out of its stroller. There’s no denying the ego boost of seeing your follower count grow, or the way your tweets touch people’s hearts. Once you realize that’s happening, it’s hard to resist the urge to keep checking how many likes you’re getting.
Surviving a pandemic lockdown is unimaginable without camaraderie and solidarity. Camaraderie was a way to learn about what was happening in other countries with the coronavirus pandemic. I also sought out reliable, non-hysterical sources of information: epidemiologists, science journalists, and public health experts.
Lest my Twitter goggles seem completely rosy, there was of course a lot of negativity and awfulness as well. A moment of insanity can ruin a person’s reputation, and even bring back old patterns of awful tweeting when someone becomes famous. How many people have been “cancelled” through Twitter?
Responses to anti-social behaviour and bullying have historically always been lax, even when brought to the attention of those responsible. Over the years, we have too often seen women, the LGBTQ+ community and ethnic minority groups targeted.
But the real deterioration began with the rise of Donald Trump and his incendiary, frenzied tweets, one of which began to dominate the daily news agenda.
Trump was banned from Twitter after the January 6, 2021, riots, but resumed regular tweeting after a “conversation” with Twitter CEO Musk on Monday night. The conversation was full of the usual vitriol and lies, and was a reminder of the enormous threat these two pose to democracy around the world. It is frightening that they are now using each other for their own nefarious gains while continuing to destroy public debate.
Musk is finding himself in increasingly dangerous situations. His behaviour towards the recent riots in the UK and North following the murder of three young girls in a knife attack in Southport was outrageous. Having already come under fire for spreading false information on Twitter about the identity of the attacker, he wrote that a “civil war is inevitable” in the UK. He then reposted a tweet suggesting that British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was planning to set up “detention camps” in the Falkland Islands. For some, Musk went too far in inciting violence during the far-right riots.
Obviously, Twitter isn’t the only social media site causing harm, but Musk seems intent on making it the worst: A recent bomb threat against Prime Minister Simon Harris’ home was made on Instagram and remained visible for at least two days before being removed.
Meanwhile, while I am working hard, I still convince myself, against my good sense, that I need it for the job, and certainly, in that respect, I find it to still be a very important tool.
I once thought that abandoning Twitter would mean “giving in” to the ever-increasing number of bullies, but in reality this belief has little basis when you realize that many of the bullies aren’t real people, and that real bullies have likely joined the attack after being fed information that the site already knows will upset them.
It seems like a likely scenario that Facebook will become such an echo chamber for Musk, Trump and their supporters that many will decide to leave the company.
Meanwhile, Musk’s continued nefarious behaviour and tarnishing of truth is putting Twitter in the crosshairs of leaders in the European Union and beyond. While the Prime Minister has signalled his intention to take action against digital platforms, what is more important in terms of effectiveness and power is the EU’s Digital Services Act, which was enacted to protect users and filter out harmful content.
Last month, Twitter was accused of violating the Digital Content Code and that its blue checkmark misleads users. This is a preliminary finding from the EU, but it could lead to hefty fines and other changes. Needless to say, Musk doesn’t agree with this assessment and is threatening a legal battle. We’ll have to wait and see.
We will look back in time and marvel at the absolute insanity of it all – how one man could have been allowed by democratically elected leaders to cause so much damage.
Fleas are the least of our worries for those of us still hanging on, and we need to think twice about continuing to hang on.