Please God, Don't Let Twitter Die

Please. I need this.

I comprehend it’s not cool to confess to liking Twitter, however I’m no longer afraid: Fuck, I love Twitter. I love reading tweets, I love tweeting. I’m any such twitcuck I genuinely pay for Twitter Blue. I don’t care who is aware of it. I awaken within the morning and the first element I do is unhinge my jaw like a snake, fireplace up Twitter, and gobble down a massive amount of tweets. On my deathbed, I’ll study my lovely circle of relatives and hoarsely whisper, “I simplest wish I had more time to spend studying tweets.”

It’s clear that matters on Twitter will exchange below Elon Musk’s possession. The preferred assumption is that Musk will gut moderation, ease the policies, and allow back all sorts of unsavory shitheads. As tech columnist Casey Newton mentioned, the expectancy has been that it would be just like the Joker releasing the criminals from Arkham Asylum.

Musk has already said that he plans to do away with lifetime bans, although it isn’t exactly clear what so as to imply. Does it imply that he disagrees with the general idea of a life-time ban and desires to create a few kind of restorative justice framework for repeat offenders inside the future? Or do we quickly see a parade of ghoulies like Charles Johnson and Milo Yiannopoulos again on the platform? Today, Musk introduced plans for a few kind of a committee to address primary coverage choices:

Meanwhile, the Washington Post mentioned today that trolls are flocking to Twitter to submit offensive hate speech. But  out of the three tweets that it describes had been taken down from the web page some hours later. Another tweet stated of simply the n-phrase repeated again and again may nevertheless be up. But there’s never been a ban on tweeting simply that word by means of itself. Nothing seems to have changed moderation-sensible but. But the trolls have made their point, noisily: “We’re here, we’re portions of shit, get used to it.” It’s intimidation, and it’s operating.

It’s impossible to expect proper now what’s going to appear to Twitter within the short or long term. For all of the saber-rattling Musk is doing about “unfastened speech,” the truth is that maximum of the policy and moderation work is less about edgy “wrongthink” in the US and greater about complying with restrictive legal guidelines in other nations. Or it’s handling undeniable vintage harassment. It’s difficult to guess what the effect of letting a few dipshits returned onto the platform may have on the ones larger-image problems that Twitter has spent the previous couple of years cleaning up.

I’m an optimist, admittedly now and again naively so. I need to consider that Twitter might exchange, and a number of those modifications I might not like, however they received’t be so awful. I want to agree with that it’s not going to emerge as 4chan, overrun with shitlords. I additionally want to accept as true with it gained’t die a gradual loss of life as the result of dwindling usership and choked-off sales.

I want to believe Twitter will nevertheless be OK, because I love Twitter. How are you able to log on and spot something like this and no longer find it irresistible?

But I don’t just love the jokes, I love all of it: the subtweets, the humblebrags, the draggings, the ratios, the dunks, the milkshake ducks, the tweetstorms, the nameflames. I received’t apologize for this. This is me, that is who I am. I love Twitter, and I don’t care who is aware of it.

If you made it all of the way via to the stop, I realize you’re just like me: not hot sufficient for Instagram, too lazy for Substack. Twitter is our ideal sweet spot. This is our heaven. I can’t lose this. We can’t.