Yes, that’s the first question I asked Google this morning, and I’ll try to explain why in a bit. The short answer is “yes”.
Like many of you, I couldn’t avoid the news of Elon Musk officially taking over Twitter this week, either in my news alerts or on the accounts of many of my more “progressive” social media friends and colleagues. Many of them took the presence of several racially and politically incideniary tweets as reason enough for them to delete their accounts, and proudly proclaimed they were doing their part to save civilization in the process.
But, in doing so, even though they redacted the specific words that were tweeted, many of the images that accompanied these proclamations including the UN-redacted blue check Twitter handles of these accoutns, so that, if I was so inclined, I could easily click on the pages of these folk and find out what other pearls of wisdom they had to offer.
For the record, I chose not to. Honestly, I have much bigger priorities these days. And, frankly, for me Twitter is at best the third or fourth social media site I spend any time on, and the last one I post these musings to daily. Candidly, I see extremely little interaction from that platform; my Linked In and Facebook metrics are far better.
And when one looks at the actual available statistics and trends relevant to Twitter and its competitive set, it’s evident that my experience is much more common than not. Consider:
— Per Statista, as of this January Twitter ranked 15th in monthly active units, with 436,000,000 monthly active users. While that total sounds impressive, it’s a mere 6 million ahead of Reddit, less thsan half of TikTok, roughly a third of Instagram, and less than 20% of Facebook.
— On the measure of monetizable daily active users–effectively those that are actually engaged eith the platform–per Kepios, at that same point in time Twitter had about half that total–217 million. So on any given day, roughly one in two accounts don’t see what’s posted.
— Two-thirds of those DAUs live outside the United States, and per several reports Twitter’s growth and adoption rates outside the U.S. are significantly higher than within it.
–And per a report from Tech.co, based on information from an internal assessment likely disclosed to Monk and his team during their due diligence, Twitter’s aware that what’s really being tweeted about isn’t what may outside the company have initially believed:
The internal document from Twitter — reported by Reuters and titled Where Did the Tweeters Go? — noted that “heavy tweeters” have been in “absolute decline,” dating as far back as early 2020. These users account for 90% of all tweets and make up to half of Twitter’s ad revenue, according to the report, despite representing only 10% of the users.
Even worse, English-speaking heavy tweeters are not posting about news, entertainment, and sports, the money-making demographics required to attract advertisers. Cryptocurrency and pornography are the most prominent topics of discussion among Twitter’s most active users, which is a notably less attractive avenue for the majority of advertisers.
The internal documents did not come to a clear conclusion as to why Twitter was losing its most active users, but it did note that the “disturbing” nature of some content was worthy of further investigation, even with daily active user counts on a steady rise. When asked to respond, a Twitter spokesperson said:
“We regularly conduct research on a wide variety of trends, which evolve based on what’s happening in the world. Our overall audience has continued to grow.”
One Twitter researcher stated that the popularity of other platforms like Instagram and TikTok were likely driving some of the problems. But the platform’s nudity-inclusive status has led to 13% of tweets being pornographic in nature, which has driven away advertisers like Dyson, PBS Kids and Forbes.
Hmmm. Maybe Musk was on to something when he tried to drive his purchase price down. Even if one assumes his motivation is more draconian than savvy, he’s hardly acquiring prime real estate.
So it was particularly ironic that yesterday CNBC, which has been all over this story like a fly on you-know-what, fell for a prank from two imposters leaving the Twitter campus, eagerly tweeting out this alarming news on a day after Musk let virtually the entire existing Twitter leadership team:
“Entire team of data engineers let go. These are two of them,” a tweet from CNBC reporter Deirdra Bosa read, implying they took the men’s statements seriously.
Both men carried boxes filled with office supplies. “Rahul,” who spelled his first and last names for the reporter, held a copy of Michelle Obama’s 2018 memoir, “Becoming,” while “Johnson” said he didn’t know how he’s would make payments on his Tesla, another tweet stated.
“Johnson” described Musk’s idea of free speech as “Nazis saying trans women shouldn’t use women’s locker rooms” and told reporters he needed to get home to “touch base with my husband and wife.”
The combination of the names “Johnson,” a euphemism for phallus, and “Ligma,” the setup to a crude joke, prompted many Twitter users conclude that the two were pranking the reporters.
CNBC later updated Bosa’s feed to amend her intrepid reporting with these minor details, once again giving this story more bandwidth across different media than perhaps it had within the Twitterverse. About the only thing missing from this was Ashton Kutcher showing up on Bosa’s report to let her know “you got punk’d”.
I suppose it was a nerve-racking day in the Bay Area to begin with. After all, it began with the disturbing news that Paul Pelosi, the spouse of the person second in line to inheriting the presidency of the United States, was brutally assaulted in his home earlier than morning by a hammer-wielding maniac apparently intending that bludgeoning for her. And at day’s end, the person currently in that job then drew a straight line to that and the events of January 6th, 2021, which then, in turn reignited social media commentary on the potential impact a Twitter where Musk and his team are currently developing a content moderation council, but withholding any such policy until he establishes it, could have on igniting more such attacks, particularly as Election Day grows closer.
Well, I know our president’s old enough to remember an even more tragic Bay Area incident decades ago, one that involved the assassination of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and openly gay supervisor Harvey Milk by Dan White, a disgruntled supervisor who served five years for manslaughter after his attorneys invoked what is now known as the “Twinkie Defense” to attempt to explain his actions. I remember this vividly, but for the sake of those younger let me let Wikipedia take over:
After a disagreement over a proposed drug rehabilitation center in the Mission District, White frequently clashed with Milk, as well as other members of the board.[6] On November 10, 1978, White resigned his seat as supervisor.[5] The reasons he cited were his dissatisfaction with what he saw as the corrupt practices of San Francisco city politics, as well as the difficulty of earning a living without a police officer’s or firefighter’s salary, jobs he could not retain legally while serving as a supervisor. White had opened a baked-potato stand at Pier 39, which failed to become profitable.[7] He reversed his resignation on November 14, 1978, after his supporters lobbied him to seek reappointment from George Moscone.
Moscone initially agreed to White’s request, but later refused the appointment at the urging of Milk and others. On November 27, 1978, White visited San Francisco City Hall with the later-declared intention of killing not only Moscone and Milk, but also two other San Francisco politicians, California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (who would later serve as Mayor of San Francisco), and Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver, whom he also blamed for lobbying Moscone not to reappoint him.[8] He climbed through a first-floor window on the side of City Hall carrying a Smith & Wesson Model 36 .38 caliber revolver and 10 rounds of ammunition. By entering the building through the window, White managed to avoid the recently installed metal detectors. After entering Moscone’s office, White pleaded to be reinstated as supervisor, but Moscone refused. White then killed Moscone by shooting him in the shoulder and chest, and twice in the head. He then walked to the other side of City Hall to Milk’s office, reloaded the gun, and fatally shot Milk five times, firing the final two shots with the gun’s barrel touching Milk’s skull, according to the medical examiner. White then fled City Hall, surrendering to the police at San Francisco’s Northern Police Station where he had formerly been a police officer. While being interviewed by investigators, White recorded a tearful confession, stating, “I just shot him.”
At the trial, White’s defense team argued that his mental state at the time of the killings was one of diminished capacity due to depression. They argued that he was therefore not capable of premeditating the murders, and thus was not legally guilty of first-degree murder. Forensic psychiatrist Martin Blinder testified that White was suffering from depression and pointed to several behavioral symptoms of that depression, including the fact that White had gone from being highly health-conscious to consuming sugary foods and drinks. When the prosecution played a recording of White’s confession, several jurors wept as they listened to what was described as “a man pushed beyond his endurance.
I guess if a jury of one’s peers could lay blame with the ingestion of a pastry filled with sugared beef lard could explain away the need to kill someone, it’s entirely possible that somewhere down the road a tweet from someone with similar feelings to those who stormed the capital that day might be cited as the cause of a future incident similar to the one that took place in the Pelosi household.
But as the pundits of decades ago observed, to give credence to the cause and effect of the willing exposure to something bad for you as a source of blame is perhaps a bigger travesty than the action that was taken. People who express concern over the expression of hateful discord are, by definition, paying attention themselves. Dan White’s issues that led to his actions were instilled in him over the course of a lifetime, as are those that led to the person who attacked Paul Pelosi, as were those of those who sat in his wife’s office chair and smeared feces on its walls, as are those of who might actually vote for the person some might cite as their Twinkie, who just happened to have been actually elected to the leadership of the free world once regardless of what anyone believes about the second such campaign or the fear of the outcome of a third.
If you give a fire air, it spreads. If you deny it air, it dies.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there when it happens, does it make a noise?
The very fact we pay attention at all to who tweets what lies are our doorsteps. We live in a world where we control what we see, what we hear, and how often. It’s pretty obvious my social media friends who believed they needed to tell the world their opinion of Twitter pay as much attention to it as does Musk, who actually tweeted out his own acknowledgment of the punking from his verified account, which is a lot more than Ms. Bosa did from hers.
Does it mean we shouldn’t be concerned about the growing potential for hate crimes and violence? Of course not. But laying more blame on a problematic, plodding, outdated social media network than on the sad histories of those who live for it is, at least in these tired eyes’ view, almost as logical as trying to blame Hostess for Dan White’s decision to murder two of his colleagues.
When Musk took official reign Thursday, he proclaimed “The bird is freed!”. Which is why I asked the question that started this –now officially the first one of these to exceed 2000 words, BTW–with the somewhat ridiculous question that I did. I was curious that if Twitter became analogous to Twinkie, could it potentially collapse completely, and thus alleviate the grave concerns of a generation of users equally as savvy as Ms. Bosa?
But here’s the good news, kids. Two years after his release from prison, White committed suicide, n0t even 40 years old. So even if a jury of his peers didn’t achieve the results so many desired for him at first, eventually his own demons, overall public sentiment, and, yes, his personal history did.
And while a bird won’t get sick or die from a Twinkie, there are foods far more dangerou. According to I Love Veterinary.Com:
Chocolate has adverse effects on birds. It will affect a bird’s digestive system and cause diarrhea and induce vomiting.
The condition gets worse when it affects the central nervous system causing seizures. Finally, the worst may happen; death!
There are chocolate Twinkies–at least this month.
Given the precarious state of Twitter , I’d offer ignoring it will be more like feeding it chocolate than deleting your account. And, good Lord, don’t repost tweets from those that still have them to prove your point.
If you are reading this via Twitter, well, I guess I’ve done my small part, because you’re reading this, and not something from one of those other accounts.
And for much as I’d like to hope what I might say might matter more to you than what they might, I’d be just as happy if your actions weren’t determined by either.
Twitter only matters to those who who believe it does. Elon Musk’s got more reasons for that now that he had last week. You and I don’t.
Until next time…