Having already staged one statistically meaningless "poll" to justify encore garbage from the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Project Veritas, a disinformation machine of astoundingly deceptive tactics, Elon Musk was at it again this week, asking "Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended
accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?"
No one knew what "egregious spam" meant, but what the hell, allowances must be made for men who have no idea what they're doing. Neither was anyone surprised that more than 72% of respondents said yes, let's further stink up Twitter with the sparkling genius of yet more Kanye Wests. Thus, wrote Mr. Musk, "Amnesty begins next week."
To whom does this matter? Does it matter? Should it matter? "Should" is something of an ethical question, which for the moment we'll overlook. As for the easier question of to whom Twitter matters, here are some facts about its usage in the United States, which I assume are comparable worldwide.
According to Pew Research, about one-in-five adults (23%) say they use the social-media platform, a bit more than I thought — and more Democrats (32%) than Republicans (17%), which did surprise me.
But what the right lacks in numbers, it makes up for in volume. "The top 25% of users by tweet volume produce 97% of all tweets," reports Pew. Perhaps it's just the algorithmic vicissitudes of my feed, but right-wing tweets dominate by far. Which leads to this: "Around one-in-five adult Twitter users in the U.S. have experienced harassing or abusive behavior on the platform." (I've tried gentle "engagement" with the right. It doesn't work.)
Finally, "a third say they see a lot of inaccurate or misleading information there." The other two-thirds must be dozing. Twitter is frontloaded, backloaded and overloaded with inaccurate or misleading information. It's everywhere, it's inescapable, and it's one of the reasons I glance at it. I find value in seeing what fallacies and fantasies the right is pumping out. Know your enemy.
Would that Twitter's malodorousness stopped at stink, and not proceeded to stench. Which is to say, "inaccurate or misleading information" is the least of Twitter's putrefaction. The other day I was too flippant in writing, "free speech on the right, to the right, means a poke in the eye — yours. At the same time, it is harmless, and rather humorous" — for this morning, The Washington Post disabused me of Twitter's amusement value.
The paper quotes one Alejandra Caraballo, of Harvard Law's cyberlaw clinic: "What Musk is doing is existentially dangerous for various marginalized communities. It’s like opening the gates of hell in terms of the havoc it will cause. People who engaged in direct targeted harassment can come back and engage in doxing, targeted harassment, vicious bullying, calls for violence, celebration of violence. I can’t even begin to state how dangerous this will be."
Said Nora Benavidez, director of a civil rights advocacy group: "Musk, under the auspices of democracy, is legitimizing decisions that will have deeply dangerous consequences in the real world.... You have journalists, activists in authoritarian regimes in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia who are now at the mercy of even more vicious trolls with no ability to fight back. It’s literally life or death for people."
And wrote Hopewell Chin'ono, a journalist in Zimbabwe: "This would be a major disaster especially in Africa where State sponsored Ghost accounts were suspended for endangering human rights activists & journalists. You would have allowed vile people to put our lives in danger as journalists! You will have blood on your hands @elonmusk."
There is no amusement in these words. My unfortunate judgment lay in thinking U.S.-centrically; here, we've no theological regime calling for the harsher oppression of women; no organized gangs of homophobic cutthroats rambling the streets; no state-sponsored "ghost" accounts agitating for the murder of journalists. Unlike Ms. Benavidez, I neglected the "deeply dangerous consequences in the real world."
As did Elon Musk. There's an upside to that guy, though: He is pissing away $44 billion. Where, for instance, shall his advertising revenue come from in the madman mecca of the world, America? As Media Matters' president, Angelo Carusone, notes, here at home Twitter will be treating us to the wit and wisdom of the American Nazi Party and "a whole bunch of 8chan, 4chan, conspiracy theorists who engage in harassment and abuse.” Racism and antisemitism will abound, "turning Twitter into a one-stop shop for operationalizing doxing and harassment, and an engine of radicalization."
Show of hands: How many believe AT&T will wish to adverstise that? Someone observed on Twitter the other day that at the rate Elon is going, the MyPillow dude will be his only sponsor. This, happily, is no exaggeration. Either Musk will flush tens of billions of dollars, or he'll revert to a moderation scheme. There is no middle path.
So there is a Plan B: time. I suspect he's already looking to unload Twitter along the lines of Vladimir's heavily discounted oil price.