We’re living in a permantly more wired world and our conversations are no longer reserved to the workplace, bar or ski slope. As a result electronic devices are making their way into the bedroom more and more frequently. How many of you are on twitter. Is twitter the first person you say good morning to. Are you a Seesmic morning person or a seesmic goodnight person.
Twitter is alive and healthy, with vibrant communities and an opportunity to converse with people and find information that mainstream media are sometimes slow to report on. Over the last week that balance is swinging towards less positive times.
In Europe, freedom of speech, and freedom of expression require people to say things that they can back up with evidence and facts. If you say something that is demonstrably false, or demonstrably misleading then you are held to account for this.
In the US they believe that freedom of expression includes the freedom to lie with impunity, to spread disinformation and to mislead people, without consequences. By doing this society is vulnerable to tyranny and fascism. If we are told a lie that we want to believe then we are less likely to quibble its veracity. We will repeat the lie, and if we see people who enjoy the same lie, then we will repeat that they have told the same lie. Disinformation is a positive feedback loop of false information being spread as real information, once it gains enough traction.
By buying Twitter, and by saying that Twitter wants to bring freedom of speech, and freedom of expression Musk is saying something that we all value and think is important. The problem though, as I have mentioned above, is that the freedom of expression that Musk is talking about, is not a European freedom, but an American one. It is suspected that he would bring back people like Trump, and that he would make twitter a welcoming place for people to spread lies and disinformation, in impunity.
There is another larger scope to this conversation and that scope is that Twitter is a global social network used by over a billion people a day. During this pandemic it has allowed people who want to find information about the risks presented by Covid-19 to follow experts in their fields, to hear accounts from sufferers of Long Covid, and to get a global appreciation of the risks of the disease. When the WHO backs up what the experts have shared on twitter, and vice versa, when the information makes sense to our moral compass, then Twitter is a great resource for information. It should be protected. It should not be possible for one individual to buy a network with over a billion users.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,”
There are plenty of ways in which people can be proponents of free speech. They can invest in education, they can invest in newspapers, they can invest in library projects and more. They can invest in making sure that people are granted free and equal access to information. You don’t need to buy a social network to promote free speech. Remember that freedom of expression comes with the obligation to be well-informed, and knowledgeable. His “freedom” is to spread rumours and opinions. These undermine, rather than help democracy. I believe that he wants dismantle the gatekeepers, so that it is even more challenging for people to have access to trustworthy information.
On Monday, he tweeted that he hoped his worst critics would remain on Twitter, because “that is what free speech means.” He added in his statement that he hoped to increase trust by making Twitter’s technology more transparent, defeating the bots that spam people on the platform and “authenticating all humans.”
When Google bought Jaiku, and when Facebook bought Instagram we stayed on the networks. Jaiku eventually became Google+ but Google+ was then dumped. Instagram, after being bought by Facebook lost its soul. Instead of being a network of friends, and friends of friends it became a network of adverts and influencers. I dumped the network because I no longer derived pleasure from the network.
Now onto Twitter. Musk “… tweeted that he hoped his worst critics would remain on twitter because ‘that is what free speech means.'”. Free speech isn’t about whether we stay on a platform or leave. It is about the freedom to be on a network that is not owned by someone we do not trust. It is about being on a network that is not owned by a temperamental individual. It is about being on a platform we trust, with values we cherish. I do not value the US values of “free speech”, I value the European ones, that include accountability. Remember the first line of the New York times’ article is “The world’s richest mansucceeded in a bid to acquire the influential social networking service, which he has said he wants to take private.”
Anyone valuing democracy should be worried by that sentence. Within the article they say that Twitter has 220 million daily users. He would take the conversation of 220 million people, and control the network they use, privately. This should not be possible.
Mr. Musk has made some of his intentions clear in regulatory filings, tweets and public appearances: The company must scrap nearly all of its moderation policies, which ban content like violent threats, harassment and spam. It must provide more transparency about the algorithm it uses to boost tweets in users’ newsfeeds. And it must become a private company.
I will finally leave you with the quote above. Do you want to be on a social network without moderation? I do not. That’s why I don’t use other platforms. I am ready to leave twitter, when the time comes. I have been ready to do so for years.
Black Mirror is a television series that was broadcast by Channel 4 a few years ago and made available to Netflix audiences recently. The series explores a variety of topics and issues to do with technology from death to crime and existentialism. It also explores themes like family and friendship.
We spend a lot of time thinking about technology and how it has changed our lives. Sometimes it’s fun to watch 80s series to see the world as it was before computers and the internet and sometimes it is fun to watch dystopian essays or short stories exploring facets of modern life.
In modern society we see that social media is affecting the discourse that is taking place between politicians and normal people. We see how social media and the lowering of the barriers of entry to the fourth estate have created a golden age for propaganda and disinformation. We see in The Waldo Moment that a CGI bear can mock the political system. It could be directly related to what we have seen happen recently.
Be Right Back deals with online identity and how a person can be emulated once they have died. The question is an interesting one. The more active we are on social media the more our character and personality can be understood and reflected back. This is limited. We are not entirely ourselves online. There are some things that we hide from the online world.
In Fifteen Million Merits we see a dystopian vision of the world where everyone lives in a small dark room. They get out of this room to go and peddle for a few hours to get Merits. Once they have 15 million merits they can “apply” for a different kind of job via a talent show.
Nosedive explores popularity and social networks. Everyone is constantly being rated based on what they share, how they interact with others and more. In such a dystopia people can progress or lose privileges based on reputation. In such a reality people are vulnerable.
A vertovian theme is explored in “The Entire history of You”. An implant called the Grain records your entire life and you have the ability to fast forward and rewind moments of your life. In so doing you can analyse what went well, what went badly and more. You can also see more than you were intended to see through other peoples’ recorded experiences. In this episode we see the Kino-Eye, the all seeing eye. Your life is no longer private.
I like some of the themes that are explored in this series and I recommend people to watch at least some of the episodes. I feel that they are relevant to our discussion about social media and online lives.
Two authors wrote books. In these books they speak about whether Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk killed twitter. The answer is neither. If Twitter was alive and healthy it would never have been sold to an individual for four times its value, because its growth potential would have made this absurd.
Twitter died by 2007, with the advent of hashtags. That’s when twitter went from being a community of friends to being a community of strangers trying to get a million followers, and using hashtags to jump into conversations that they were not devoted to. At the first tuttle meetups and tweetups everyone knew everyone else from twitter. No one was a stranger to anyone else.
It’s when I went to a tweetup and I heard someone say “i’m not really a twitter user, I just came to the tweetup because it’s being hyped up.” That’s when twitter declined even more.
If we fast forward by a little more than a decade I believe that the pandemic killed Twitter, and Social Media. I believe this because before the pandemic normal people were on Facebook, and possibly Reddit and other social networks but they were not on Twitter. To a large extent they weren’t on FB either.
During the pandemic social media became more unpleasant. Trolling became more common. Trolling is the reason I dumped facebook for two to three years. Amplified loneliness is why I dumped Instagram and never returned.
The idea that Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk killed twitter is erroneous. Marketers did. Public relations firms did. People who took a utilitarian view of social media killed Twitter.
Twitter was fantastic, when it was a network of friends chatting with friends. It stopped being that in 2007-2008. I still used it but my ROI had declined dramatically.
Is this due to moving from London to Switzerland? I don’t think so. I just think that Twitter was best, when it had value to small communities, rather than marketers, public relations people and other groups with a utilitarian agenda.
Articles like this one are never written by people who live and breath social media. They are written by outsiders looking in. We could read them, but because of my perspective they have no value. By perspective I mean my attitude towards social networks and social media.
And Finally
Twitter wasn’t killed by Dorsey or Musk. It was killed by the people who took a utilitarian approach to social media. They turned Twitter from a tool for communities to have conversations, and build projects together to a place where marketers and public relations firms could hijack conversations, and make it about following celebraties, rather than conversations.
When Twitter pivoted from being a social network to social media, it became less interesting. I deleted my first twitter account by 2008 or so, and only returned because Swiss television interviewed me about the social network.
When Musk bought Twitter it was already worthless.
The End of an Era
There was a time when Twitter was Twitter, Facebook was Facebook, Instagram was Instagram and Whatsapp was whatsapp. Over time they have all been bought or rebranded, and the things that made them so fantastic were destroyed. Society saw social media as an addiction. This attitude destroyed social networks.
I have fun with technology which means that I spend a lot of time online as a result of which I enjoy creating online friendships. The advantage of that is that wherever I am in the world I have people to chat with, or so I thought. I am taking a break from one social network in particular because I am no longer gaining from that social network.
It was never about more than developing interesting friendships with interesting people and this was fine when I lived in a city where everyone used the site. The problem is when you move to a place where there are fewer geeks. The social media require one very important character trait for success. That the user is not stigmatized as being geeky.
This comment comes after reading facebook statususes. One person said they were online at six am, second person replied “dweeb”. Of course this is playful but below the surface that attitude is very strong within contemporary culture. Spending too much time socialising in social media labels you as a geek.
Social media will never be social whilst people still think of conversing with people online as geeky. Social networks will never be strong until people drop the stigma of being geeky and embrace a new way of doing things.
Mobile technology is evolving the right way with so many social media networks developing their services for people to carry with them at all times. For the moment business professionals have blackberries and geeks like me have a diversity of smart phones. In two to three years when smart phones become more affordable then the stigma of being social online will weaken. It’s at that point that social media will hep improve your social life, rather than run along side it.
This week should see me dropping by the Frontline Club in London for the first time in weeks. I want to see Blog Wars which could be quite interesting. “Blog Wars provides a sharp and funny look at the explosion of political blogs, which have become the loudspeakers for a new generation of activists speaking out and picking fights across the political spectrum”
I’m looking forward to yet another Seesmic meetup and I’ve heard that some interesting people should be present although I haven’t seen this written on paper yet. The usual London suspects should be there so that should be a really good evening. That will be on the 17th and more details are to follow.
I’m not sure whether there’s another Social Media Cafe but if there is then there’s a very good chance I’ll be present. I’ll keep you informed.
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Mobile phone… Google reader, Yeigo, Facebook, Twitter, MXit, Gmail
Laptop lives by the side of my bed, mobile phone wakes me up in the morning and then I summon the engery to get up by checking my email and overnight Twitters on my Blackberry
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Mobile phone… Google reader, Yeigo, Facebook, Twitter, MXit, Gmail
I normally have:
-Cat, large and fierce
-Macbook Pro
-iPhone
There’s also an unused Treo 650 within reach. Then again, everything’s within reach of the bed in my apartment…
I know I sleep better actually when the laptop isn’t near the bed however.
Laptop lives by the side of my bed, mobile phone wakes me up in the morning and then I summon the engery to get up by checking my email and overnight Twitters on my Blackberry