Kate Hawkesby: Watching Twitter implode is fascinating

It’s fascinating to watch the gradual implosion of Twitter.

There are two camps on this. Those who believe it’s been a toxic hellscape of negativity gradually eating itself anyway and Elon just sped things up, and those who believe it is a dynamic platform for free speech, representing a wide variety of views and providing an outlet for all kinds of diversity.

Those who believe the latter, are grieving the demise of their outlet, their community, their sense of connection, and the independent citizen style journalism that went along with it. They saw Twitter as a space for discourse, debate, a contest of ideas. A source for breaking news and contradictory views, a sounding board and a mine of information.

But I’d be in the former category. I struggle to see Twitter as anything more than toxic trolls lambasting people and ideas they hate, with venomous Tweets which look to cancel and cut people down. I found it a cesspit, hence I left Twitter years ago and did not for one minute look back.

So I was bemused when Elon Musk bought it – it was almost like that’s what Twitter deserved. A crazy person buying a crazy platform where everyone behaves terribly and the whole thing is so infiltrated with bots anyway that it’s impossible to know what’s real and what isn’t. The Twitterati though, those who live on it, and find it amplifies their voice and their views and they get a real sense of self-importance out of it – they’re ropeable. How dare Elon come along and ruin their playground. How dare a billionaire with no clue about a social media platform, come in and sack people, and reinstate Trump (even though awkwardly it looks like not even Trump wants back on it) and do all the other hectic chaotic things that Elon has done. He’s popped their self-inflated balloon of believing their echo chamber was real or important... as opposed to a tribe driven by an algorithm, supported by nothing more than hot air. So as well as staff either getting sacked or quitting, users are quitting too – in disgust.

And Twitter wasn’t that big to begin with. Time says, “despite having around 240 million users, Twitter is tiny in comparison to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Google. But it does punch above its weight... it derives its power and value from three communities that depend on it: politicians, celebrities, and journalists. Politicians and celebrities love that Twitter enables them to broadcast directly... without gatekeepers. Journalists love that Twitter gives them an opportunity to build their personal brands while also giving consensus on which stories are newsworthy and which are not. For the rest of the users, Twitter provides the illusion of direct access to VIP’s who would otherwise be beyond reach. Trolls love Twitter because its algorithms give their content disproportionate weight in the conversation.” But Time says we ‘shouldn’t be surprised at how quickly and easily Twitter’s falling apart.’ And that ‘the people who rely on Twitter the most – the politicians, celebrities and journalists– those who probably can’t imagine a life without Twitter, are going to have start doing just that.’

So is it RIP Twitter any day now? That’s what 240 million users are waiting to find out.

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