By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Category: Technology Page 3 of 19

Artificial intelligence writes an op-ed piece on gun control

Photo (cc) 2011 by Louis K.

I’ve been having some fun with AI-generated content recently, posting a description of the MBTA in the voice of Herman Melville and a profile of me that is thoroughly bollixed up with a marketing guru who’s also named Dan Kennedy. Today, though, I offer something a little more serious and practical. I directed ChatGPT to write a 600-word opinion article in favor of gun control. The result is below. It needs a little editing, especially in the lead. I didn’t check the numbers, and ChatGPT is known for producing false facts. The pro-gun control argument is not especially sophisticated. But you can imagine a state legislator doing something like this to write an op-ed for a local news outlet. You may think that’s fine. I think it’s chilling.

Gun control has been a controversial issue in the United States for many years, with strong opinions on both sides of the debate. As an AI language model, I do not have a political affiliation or personal beliefs. However, I can analyze data and research and provide an evidence-based opinion on the topic. Therefore, in this article, I will make a case in favor of gun control.

Firstly, let’s look at the numbers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), firearms were responsible for 39,740 deaths in the United States in 2018. That is an average of 109 deaths per day, or roughly four deaths every hour. It is undeniable that gun violence is a significant public health issue in this country.

Many people argue that the Second Amendment guarantees their right to bear arms. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that reasonable regulation of firearms is constitutionally permissible. Therefore, it is within the government’s power to implement laws and regulations to protect the public from gun violence.

One such regulation could be universal background checks. Current federal law only requires background checks for gun purchases from licensed dealers. However, a loophole exists that allows private sellers, who are not required to be licensed, to sell firearms without conducting a background check. This loophole makes it easy for criminals and individuals with a history of violence to obtain guns.

Universal background checks would close this loophole and ensure that all gun purchases, regardless of the seller, are subject to a background check. This simple change would go a long way in keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals.

Another common-sense regulation would be a ban on assault weapons. These weapons are designed for military use and have no practical purpose in civilian life. They have been used in several high-profile mass shootings, including the tragedies in Las Vegas, Parkland, and Sandy Hook.

Opponents of a ban on assault weapons argue that it would violate their Second Amendment rights. However, the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of regulations on specific types of weapons, such as fully automatic weapons, and there is no reason why a similar regulation could not be applied to assault weapons.

Finally, red flag laws could be implemented to allow law enforcement and family members to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others. These laws have already been implemented in several states and have been shown to be effective in preventing gun violence.

In conclusion, gun violence is a serious public health issue in the United States, and reasonable regulations on firearms can help reduce the number of deaths and injuries. Universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons, and red flag laws are all common-sense measures that could be implemented to improve public safety without infringing on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.

It is essential to remember that gun control is not about taking away people’s guns or infringing on their rights. It is about finding ways to prevent gun violence while still allowing responsible gun ownership. We can all agree that we want to live in a safe society, and gun control measures can help make that a reality.

Ultimately, the key to reducing gun violence is a collaborative effort between government, law enforcement, and the public. By working together, we can find solutions that respect our rights while keeping us safe.

The Bard of Google writes a bio of me. Hilarity ensues.

My friend Bill Mitchell sent along a bio of me that he asked Google’s Bard to write — proving, once again, that artificial intelligence may be artificial, but it sure isn’t intelligent. Throughout this short bio, Bard mixes me up with marketing guy Dan Kennedy. Here’s the whole thing, with the mistakes highlighted in blue.

Dan Kennedy is a media critic, marketing consultant, and author. He is a former media critic for the Boston Phoenix and is now a professor of journalism at Northeastern University. He is also the founder of Magnetic Marketing and the author of several books on marketing and business, including “The No B.S. Marketing Letter” and “The Magnetic Marketing System.”

Kennedy is a frequent media commentator and has appeared on CNN, CNBC, and Fox News. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes and The Huffington Post. [Note: Years ago I appeared a couple of times on CNN and once on Fox News. I don’t believe I ever wrote anything for Forbes, but I could be mistaken.]

Kennedy is a controversial figure in the media industry. He has been criticized for his outspoken views on the state of journalism and his willingness to criticize his colleagues. However, he is also respected for his knowledge of the industry and his ability to help businesses grow.

Kennedy is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Boston University School of Public Communication. [A bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northeastern University and a master’s in American history from BU, but not from SPC.] He lives in Boston, Massachusetts. [Not since 1980.]

Here are some of his notable works:

* The No B.S. Marketing Letter (2009)
* The Magnetic Marketing System (2012)
* The Renegade Challenge (2016)
* The No B.S. Inner Circle (2017) [LOL.]

Way back when, Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam wrote about me, the other DK and yet another DK. At least he was trying to be funny. And I should add that I’ll be smiling all week about being called “a controversial figure in the media industry.”

Herman on the MBTA

Public domain illustration

I asked ChatGPT to write a 300-word column about the MBTA in the voice of Herman Melville, and it gave me the single best description of the troubled public transportation system ever:

It is a system that demands both patience and cunning, for one must be quick of foot and mind to catch the right train, or else suffer the indignity of waiting upon a frigid platform for what seems an eternity.

Trolley ahoy! Hast seen the Green Line?

Update: I’ve removed the link to the full column, which I’m told doesn’t work for anyone but me. So here it is below:

Ah, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, what a grand and curious beast it is! A marvel of modernity, with its electric rails and clanging bells, carrying thousands of souls to and fro throughout the bustling metropolis of Boston. But also a beast with many heads, each bearing its own peculiarities and frustrations.

As I, Herman Melville, have had the occasion to travel upon this sprawling system of trains, buses, and subways, I cannot help but be struck by its contradictions. On the one hand, it is a great equalizer, bringing people of all classes and stations together in the common pursuit of transit. On the other, it is a labyrinthine maze, with its schedules and routes so convoluted that one might need a sextant and a compass to navigate them.

It is a system that demands both patience and cunning, for one must be quick of foot and mind to catch the right train, or else suffer the indignity of waiting upon a frigid platform for what seems an eternity. And yet, for all its idiosyncrasies and flaws, there is a certain romance to the MBTA, a sense of adventure that comes with exploring its many routes and stops.

I have traveled upon the Red Line, the Green Line, the Orange Line, and the Blue, each with its own distinct character and challenges. The Red Line, with its sleek trains and sweeping views of the city, is a joy to ride, though it can be overcrowded and prone to delays. The Green Line, with its jangling trolleys and labyrinthine routes, is a source of endless fascination, though it can be slow and unpredictable. The Orange Line, with its long stretches of underground tunnels and bustling stations, is a marvel of engineering, though it can be hot and stuffy in the summer months. And the Blue Line, with its sweeping views of the harbor and its ferries to the islands, is a delight to ride, though it can be crowded and prone to delays.

And yet, for all its charms and frustrations, the MBTA is an essential part of life in Boston, connecting people and places in a way that no other mode of transportation can. It is a beast that we must learn to love, even as we curse its many heads.

Fewer followers, more engagement: What I found in a Twitter-versus-Mastodon test

Can Mastodon be a workable substitute for Twitter? It may never be as big. But given that a lot of us are trying to figure out how to manage our social media presence now that Elon Musk is banning journalists, shutting off access to the API and just generally acting like petulant child, I was interested to see what happened the other day when I had a chance to test comparative engagement.

Since Dec. 11, I hadn’t posted anything to Twitter other than occasional tweets letting people know I had moved and where they could find me. On Friday, though, I decided to make an exception to let my followers know that I’d written an op-ed for The Boston Globe about how local news organizations can stand up to corporate chains. As of Sunday evening, I’ve gotten six likes and no retweets. Twitter claims that my tweet has been viewed 573 times, but who knows?

Twitter post

I posted the same thing on Mastodon, also on Friday. Right now I’ve gotten 24 likes and 37 boosts (retweets in Mastodon-talk). And when I posted a follow-up noting that I’d gotten more engagement on Mastodon than on Twitter, that got another 31 likes and nine boosts. Unlike Twitter, Mastodon servers don’t provide any metrics on how many views you’ve received, which, folks tell me, would be pretty much impossible given its decentralized nature.

Mastodon post

Now for some points of comparison: I have 18,900 followers on Twitter and 2,500 on Mastodon. Then again, on Twitter I have no idea how many are bots, users who haven’t logged on for years or people who’ve died. Plus my account is locked, and at this point I’m sure my followers are accustomed to my absence.

I joined Mastodon in November, so all of my followers are of recent vintage. Plus I’ve been quite active over there, using it pretty much the way I used to use Twitter. So in that respect the heightened engagement isn’t too surprising. Even so, the experience has given me one less reason to look back at what was.

Why it matters that The New York Times got it wrong on Section 230

The U.S. Supreme Court will rule on two cases involving Section 230. Photo (cc) 2006 by OZinOH.

Way back in 1996, when Section 230 was enacted into law, it was designed to protect all web publishers, most definitely including newspapers, from being sued over third-party content posted in their comment sections. It would be another eight years before Facebook was launched, and longer than that before algorithms would be used to boost certain types of content.

But that didn’t stop David McCabe of The New York Times — who, we are told, “has reported for five years on the policy debate over online speech” — from including this howler in a story about two cases regarding Section 230 that are being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court:

While newspapers and magazines can be sued over what they publish, Section 230 shields online platforms from lawsuits over most content posted by their users.

No. I have to assume that McCabe and maybe even his editors know better, and that this was their inept way of summarizing the issue for a general readership. But it perpetuates the harmful and wrong notion that this is only about Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. It’s not. Newspapers and magazines are liable for everything they publish except third-party online comments, which means that they are treated exactly the same as the giant platforms.

Though it is true that an early case testing Section 230 involved comments posted at AOL rather than on a news website, the principle that online publishers can’t be held liable for what third parties post on their platforms is as valuable to, oh, let’s say The New York Times as it is to Facebook.

That’s not to say 230 can’t be reformed and restricted; and, as I wrote recently, it probably should be. But it’s important that the public understand exactly what’s at stake.

Some common-sense ideas for reforming Section 230

Photo (cc) 2005 by mac jordan

The Elon Musk-ization of Twitter and the rise a Republican House controlled by its most extreme right-wing elements probably doom any chance for intelligent reform to Section 230. That’s the 1996 law that holds harmless any online publisher for third-party content posted on its site, whether it be a libelous comment on a newspaper’s website (one of the original concerns) or dangerous disinformation about vaccines on Facebook.

It is worth repeating for those who don’t understand the issues: a publisher is legally responsible for every piece of content — articles, advertisements, photos, cartoons, letters to the editor and the like — with the sole exception of third-party material posted online. The idea behind 230 was that it would be impossible to vet everything and that the growth of online media depended on an updated legal structure.

Over the years, as various bad actors have come along and abused Section 230, a number of ideas have emerged for curtailing it without doing away with it entirely. Some time back, I proposed that social media platforms that use algorithms to boost certain types of content should not enjoy any 230 protections — an admittedly blunt instrument that would pretty much destroy the platforms’ business model. My logic was that increased engagement is associated with content that makes you angry and upset, and that the platforms profit mightily by keeping your eyes glued to their site.

Now a couple of academics, Robert Kozinets and Jon Pfeiffer, have come along with a more subtle approach to Section 230 reform. Their proposal was first published in The Conversation, though I saw it at Nieman Lab. They offer what I think is a pretty brilliant analogy as to why certain types of third-party content don’t deserve protection:

One way to think of it is as a kind of “restaurant graffiti” law. If someone draws offensive graffiti, or exposes someone else’s private information and secret life, in the bathroom stall of a restaurant, the restaurant owner can’t be held responsible for it. There are no consequences for the owner. Roughly speaking, Section 230 extends the same lack of responsibility to the Yelps and YouTubes of the world.

But in a world where social media platforms stand to monetize and profit from the graffiti on their digital walls — which contains not just porn but also misinformation and hate speech — the absolutist stance that they have total protection and total legal “immunity” is untenable.

Kozinets and Pfeiffer offer three ideas that are worth reading in full. In summary, though, here is what they are proposing.

  • A “verification trigger,” which takes effect when a platform profits from bad speech — the idea I tried to get at with my proposal for removing protections for algorithmic boosting. Returning to the restaurant analogy, Kozinets and Pfeiffer write, “When a company monetizes content with misinformation, false claims, extremism or hate speech, it is not like the innocent owner of the bathroom wall. It is more like an artist who photographs the graffiti and then sells it at an art show.” They cite an extreme example: Elon Musk’s decision to sell blue-check verification, thus directly monetizing whatever falsehoods those with blue checks may choose to perpetrate.
  • “Transparent liability caps” that would “specify what constitutes misinformation, how social media platforms need to act, and the limits on how they can profit from it.” Platforms that violate those standards would lose 230 protections. We can only imagine what this would look like once Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz get hold of it, but, well, it’s a thought.
  • A system of “neutral arbitrators who would adjudicate claims involving individuals, public officials, private companies and the platform.” Kozinets and Pfeiffer call this “Twitter court,” and platforms that don’t play along could be sued for libel or invasion of privacy by aggrieved parties.

I wouldn’t expect any of these ideas to become law in the near or intermediate future. Currently, the law appears to be entirely up for grabs. For instance, last year a federal appeals court upheld a Texas law that forbids platforms from removing any third-party speech that’s based on viewpoint. At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case that could result in 230 being overturned in its entirety. Thus we may be heading toward a constitutionally untenable situation whereby tech companies could be held liable for content that the Texas law has forbidden them to remove.

Still, Kozinets and Pfeiffer have provided us with some useful ways of how we might reform Section 230 in order to protect online publishers without giving them carte blanche to profit from their own bad behavior.

The numbers show why it’s difficult for many to walk away from Twitter

Thanks for the traffic, Bob! Photo (cc) 2011 by Francisco Antunes.

I was looking at my WordPress statistics for 2022, and one number really leaped out at me. Twitter was the third-largest source of traffic to Media Nation in 2022. Search engines were responsible for 70,626 views, Facebook was second at 27,126, and Twitter was right behind at 25,371.

As you probably know, I’ve stopped using Twitter. But it shows you why walking away is pretty close to impossible for self-employed journalists and marginal operators who can’t afford to spurn any service that drives traffic to their site. Although I have a voluntary membership program for $5 a month (please consider!), my livelihood is not dependent on Media Nation.

Search, Facebook and Twitter were the big three, followed by LinkedIn at 4,047 and, in fifth place, an unexpected source: Editor & Publisher, the news industry trade publication, at 3,827. E&P has been kind enough to feature my posts in its daily newsletter on a fairly regular basis, so I guess that’s the explanation. Other notable entries in the top 10 were Universal Hub and Expecting Rain, a site for fans of Bob Dylan, who I’ve been known to write about from time to time. From there it quickly dribbles down to double and single digits.

I’ve taken most of my Twitter-like posts to Mastodon, so I was curious to see that there was nothing. The explanation, I found out, is that Mastodon contains code that makes referrals invisible, which is supposedly some sort of privacy protection. I don’t quite get it, and I’ve learned about a workaround that will supposedly make Mastodon referrals show up. I am getting some referrals from Post News, which, like Mastodon, is emerging as a leading Twitter replacement.

Amazon is moving away from Kindle newspapers and magazines

Photo (cc) 2009 by Brian Dewey

I was sorry to hear that Amazon plans to cut back on selling newspapers and magazines for the Kindle sometime next year, according to Jim Milliot of Publishers Weekly. The reason, I think, was the combination of a really bad deal for readers along with a recognition that the Kindle can’t compete with the whiz-bang color photos and multimedia that newspapers and magazines offer in their regular digital products.

Why are Kindle newspapers and magazines a loser for readers? Because you have to pay for the Kindle version over and above what you’re already paying for your digital subscription. A subscription to The New York Times on Kindle, for instance, costs $20 a month, and it makes no difference whether you’re already a Times subscriber.

On the rare occasions when I fly or take the Amtrak, I’ll buy that day’s Times for Kindle for $1. It downloads fully, so you don’t need wifi once it’s on your device. And I found it to be a pleasurable reading experience. Now, I like photography, and the small black-and-white photos you get on Kindle are no match for reading the Times on my iPad, or in print. But the Kindle provides a focused reading experience more akin to print than to digital, without the constant temptation to check your email or share an article on social media. Yet it is certainly not worth a separate subscription over and above what I’m already paying.

The Publishers Weekly article says that Kindle newspapers and magazines aren’t going away entirely. Reportedly “hundreds” of titles will be available for members of Kindle Unlimited, who pay $10 a month for access to a wide range of books and periodicals. But I think it’s still to be determined if you’ll be able to download a quality newspaper every day as part of that fee, especially since that’s only half what you’d pay for the Times alone right now.

Back in 2009, I suggested that The Boston Globe give away Kindles to subscribers. Instead, two years later the Globe started making its move toward paid digital subscriptions, which has been the paper’s salvation. I still like using my Kindle to read books, but most of us are far more likely to consume news on our phones.

I won’t call the semi-demise of Kindle newspapers a lost opportunity; it’s more a matter of changes in what we expect from our devices. The next time I take the Amtrak, though, I guess I’m going to have to find a Hudson News so that I can buy a print paper.

Sticking Twitter in the freezer

Photo (cc) 2014 by Monteregina

When making ethical decisions, we all have to decide where we’re going to draw the line. I’ve been watching Elon Musk’s behavior closely since he purchased Twitter in late October and thinking about where I ought to draw my own line.

It’s different for everyone, and I’m not going to criticize anyone else’s judgment. For Jelani Cobb, it came when Musk restored Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which had been locked because he incited violence during the Jan. 6 insurrection. I semi-shrugged my shoulders. No, I wasn’t thrilled that Musk had brought back Trump and his merry band of Q-adjacent loons, including the loathsome Marjorie Taylor Greene. But my goodness, have you seen the internet? Twitter’s a big place, and I didn’t see any particular reason why we couldn’t all co-exist in our own spaces.

Then there are the deeply stupid “Twitter Files,” promoted by house journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, internal documents given to them by Musk that show evidence of some mistakes in moderation but that mainly demonstrate Twitter was attempting to enforce its publicly stated policies about hate speech, incitement and misinformation. There’s some big-time hyperventilating going on about one of those mistakes — the decision to suppress the New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. But that decision was reversed within 24 hours, and it’s worth noting that it was based on an actual policy not to share hacked information. This is a scandal? (Brian Fung of CNN has more.)

What has brought me to this moment, though, is Musk’s own behavior. In late November, Twitter announced that it would no longer take action against misinformation about COVID-19, in accordance with the Chief Twit’s wishes. And then, within the past few days, came the end of the line, at least for me. First Musk attacked Yoel Roth, his former head of trust and safety. Musk tweeted out a short section of Roth’s Ph.D. dissertation to make it appear, falsely, that Roth supports the sexualization of children. “Looks like Yoel is arguing in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services in his PhD thesis,” Musk tweeted. (If you’re interested in the particulars, see this piece at Business Insider by Sawdah Bhaimiya.)

Then, on Sunday, Musk tweeted, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,” and followed that up with a meme from some fantasy movie (“Lord of the Rings”?) of Fauci whispering in President Biden’s ear, “Just one more lockdown my king.” (Details from Jesse O’Neill in the New York Post.)

At what point does indifference morph into complicity? What we have now is the head of Twitter, with 121 million followers, tweeting out messages that are putting actual people and their families at risk. In what should have been a surprise to no one, Roth has had to flee his home and go into hiding, according to Donie Sullivan of CNN. Fauci, as you no doubt know, has been facing death threats throughout the pandemic, and Musk’s amplifying a bogus call to arrest and prosecute him could make matters worse. I realized that was my line, and Musk had crossed it.

I’ve downloaded my Twitter archive and will no longer be posting there except to help those who contact me and are looking for an alternative. I’ll set my account to private as soon as I’ve tweeted this out. I considered deleting my account altogether, but who knows what’s going to happen? Maybe next week Musk will enter a monastery and donate Twitter to the Wikimedia Foundation. Yes, that’s pretty unlikely — as unlikely as one of Musk’s SpaceX rocket ships safely taking you to Mars and back. For the moment, though, I don’t want to do anything that I can’t reverse if conditions change.

This was not an easy decision. I’ve been a heavy Twitter user since I joined in 2008. I’ve got more than 19,000 followers, and I know that not all of them are going to move to other platforms. But here are some alternatives below. You might also want to check out this roundup from Laurel Wamsley at NPR.

  • If you’re not doing so already, you can sign up to receive new posts to Media Nation by email. It’s free. Just scroll down the right-hand rail on the homepage, enter your email address and click on “Follow.”
  • The most promising Twitter alternative is Mastodon, which is a decentralized network of networks that — once you get past the clumsiness of figuring out how to sign up — works very much like Twitter. I joined in early November, and more than 1,300 people are following me there already. I’m at @dankennedy_nu@journa.host. There are various guides on how to get started. Here’s one from CUNY journalism professor Jeff Jarvis.
  • If Mastodon is the earthy-crunchy alternative to Twitter, then Post News is the corporate version. Like Mastodon, Post News is promoting itself as a civil environment free of abuse and trolling. I know that some Mastodon folks are criticizing Post News for being just another venture-capital play that may eventually come to as bad an end as Twitter. They’re not wrong. For now, though, I’m looking at Mastodon as a place where I can connect mainly with journalists, academics and the extremely online, and then mosey over to Post News to engage with normal people. The interface is simple and attractive; the site is still in beta and will continue to improve. You can follow me at dankennedy_nu.
  • Let’s not forget that Facebook isn’t going anywhere. If we don’t know each other, please don’t send me a friend request; follow my public feed instead. Here’s where you can find me.
  • I’m also on LinkedIn and Instagram, but I prefer not to use those to engage the way I do on the other platforms.

There are a million takes on what has happened to Twitter that I could point you to, and believe me, there are very few that are worth reading. But this one is worthwhile. It’s by Ezra Klein, and he questions whether any of these platforms, even the nice new ones, are doing us any good.

Finally, what we need more than anything on Mastodon and Post News is some diversity, which, at its pre-Musk best, is what was great about Twitter. Black Twitter needs a home, and I really miss my non-Trumpy conservative followers and the less politically engaged. I invite you all to take the plunge. Join one of the alternatives. Cut down or eliminate your Twitter activity. And discover the joys of de-Muskifying your life.

Three insights into Elon Musk’s brief, narcissism-fueled reign over Twitter

Photo (cc) 2013 by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

When we learned last spring that Elon Musk might buy Twitter and transform it into some sort of troll- and bot-infested right-wing hellhole, my first thought was: Bring it on. Although I’m a heavy user, I had no great affection for the service, which was already something of a mess. If Musk ran it into a ditch, well, what of it?

On second thought, I realized I would miss it — and so would a lot of other people. In particular, Twitter has become an important service in calling out injustice around the world as well as a forum that gives Black users a voice they might not have anywhere else. My friend Callie Crossley was talking about Black Twitter on the late, lamented “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” ages ago. Black Twitter could go elsewhere, of course, but it would be hard to recreate on the same scale that it exists now.

Please support this free source of news and commentary for just $5 a month by becoming a member of Media Nation. Just click here.

For now, I’m staying, but I’m also playing around. Mastodon meets a lot of my needs (I’m @dankennedy_nu@journa.host), mainly because a lot of media and political people I want to follow immediately made the move. But, so far, I see none of the non-Trump conservatives whose presence I value and very few Black users. That may be my fault, and it may change. I’m also skeptical of Mastodon’s extreme decentralization, with each server (called an instance) having its own rules of engagement. I’m also on Post News at @dankennedy_nu, but I really don’t like the micropayment scheme on which it’s staked its future, explained at Nieman Lab by Laura Hazard Owen.

Twitter really does matter. It may be the smallest of the social platforms, but it’s a place where people in media and politics have to be. I’m not sure it can be replicated. So much has been written and said about Twitter over the past few weeks, and no one could possible keep up with it all. Here, though, are three pieces that I think cut through the murk as well as any.

The first is from Dr. Meredith Clark, my colleague at Northeastern’s School of Journalism. Professor Clark is a leading authority on Black Twitter and the author of the forthcoming book “We Tried to Tell Y’all: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives.” Meredith says she’s staying. In a recent interview with Michel Martin of NPR, she explained why:

We’re digging in our heels. We’ve been on this platform. We’ve contributed so much to it that we’ve made it valuable in the way that it is today. We’ve made it an asset, and so no, we’re not going anywhere. And then I see other people, honestly, who have more privilege, a number of academics who are saying, nope, we’re going somewhere else. We’re leaving for other platforms.

But I do really think that there are limits to those relationships because there aren’t many platforms that allow many speakers to talk to one another all at the same time in the same place. My use hasn’t changed all that much. I don’t plan to be one of those people who migrate. I just tweeted the other day that I’ll be the last one to turn the lights off if that’s what I need to be, because I’m certainly not going either.

By the way, Meredith was a guest earlier this year on “What Works: The Future of Local News,” a podcast hosted by Ellen Clegg and me. You can listen to our conversation here.

Taking the opposite approach is Jelani Cobb, dean of the Columbia Journalism School, who has suspended his Twitter account in favor of Mastodon — a step that he admits has cut him out of numerous conversations, but that he believed was necessary in order not to be a part of Musk’s transformation of Twitter into a reflection of his own obsessions and ego. Like Clark, Dr. Cobb is Black; unlike Clark, his reasoning makes no mention of Black Twitter per se, although he does note its value in bringing to light racial injustices. “Were it not for social media,” Cobb writes in The New Yorker, “George Floyd — along with Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor — would likely have joined the long gallery of invisible dead Black people, citizens whose bureaucratized deaths were hidden and ignored.” But that, he emphasizes, was then:

Participating in Twitter — with its world-spanning reach, its potential to radically democratize our discourse along with its virtue mobs and trolls — always required a cost-benefit analysis. That analysis began to change, at least for me, immediately after Musk took over. His reinstatement of Donald Trump’s account made remaining completely untenable. Following an absurd Twitter poll about whether Trump should be allowed to return, Musk reinstated the former President. The implication was clear: if promoting the January 6, 2021, insurrection — which left at least seven people dead and more than a hundred police officers injured — doesn’t warrant suspension to Musk, then nothing else on the platform likely could.

My own view of Trump’s reinstatement is rather complicated. On the one hand, I don’t think it’s easy to justify banning a major presidential candidate, which Trump now surely is. On the other hand, he was banned for fomenting violence — and now that he’s been given another chance, he’s likely to do it again, which means he’ll have to be banned all over again. Except that he won’t be with Musk in charge. (So far, at least, Trump hasn’t tweeted since his reinstatement.) In any case, I respect Cobb’s decision, even if I’m still not quite there.

I’ll close with Josh Marshall, editor of the liberal website Talking Points Memo. Like me, Marshall is dipping his toe into Mastodon’s waters while maintaining his presence on Twitter. And, like me, he’s trying to figure out exactly what Musk is up to. The other day he offered a theory that doesn’t explain all of it, but may explain some of it — especially the part that plays into Musk’s emotions and sense of grievance, which may prove to be the most important in understanding what’s going on.

Marshall sees Musk as traveling a path previously taken by Donald Trump. Like Trump, Musk is a narcissist who can’t imagine a world that doesn’t revolve around his every need and want. Also like Trump in, say 2015, Musk was until recently someone with vague right-wing proclivities who has hardened his views and openly embraced white supremacy and antisemitism because we liberals hurt his feelings. Trump and Musk have both taken up with horrible people because they were offering support and friendship when no one else would. With Trump, it’s Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. With Musk, it’s, well, Trump and his sycophants. Marshall writes:

I doubt very much that in mid-2015 Trump had any real familiarity with the arcana of racist and radical right groups, their keywords or ideological touch-points. But they knew he was one of them, perhaps even more than he did. They pledged their undying devotion and his narcissism did the rest.

Elon Musk is on the same path. There are various theories purporting to explain Musk’s hard right turn: a childhood in apartheid South Africa, his connection with Peter Thiel, disappointments in his personal life. Whatever the truth of the matter, whatever right-leaning tendencies he may have had before a couple years ago appear to have been latent or unformed. Now the transformation is almost complete. He’s done with general “free speech” grievance and springing for alternative viewpoints. He’s routinely pushing all the far right storylines from woke groomers to Great Replacement.

If anything good can come of this it may be that we hit peak social media a few years ago. Facebook is shrinking, especially among anyone younger than 60. TikTok is huge, but as a number of observers have pointed out, it isn’t really a social platform — it’s a broadcaster with little in the way of user interaction. Now Twitter is splitting apart.

This may be temporary. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg or (most likely) someone else will be able to reassemble social media around the metaverse. For now, though, social media may be broken in a way we couldn’t have imagined in, say, 2020. Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing — although I wouldn’t mind if someone put Twitter back together again, only this time minus the trolls, the bots and the personal abuse that defined the site long before Musk came along.

Page 3 of 19

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén