Die Twitter Die!

I had started and abandoned writing this piece after the chaos of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. However, the number of experts weighing in on how to save Twitter from collapse made me feel like I had to say something.

No, I do not want the jobs and lives of Twitter employees destroyed. However, I do not care whether Musk salvages his $44B or any other stake holders keep their shirts. I definitely do not care whether Musk eliminates bots or provides a haven of free speech. I think the very concept of Twitter should die and we should all be delivered from twits twittering or tweeting or whatever.

In general, Social media is just accelerated non conversations lacking in gravitas and authority. So what is the point of keeping either Twitter or Facebook? So everyone can attempt to tell everyone else what they had for breakfast and have most everyone ignore them? Or is it so people can build themselves a barometer of their own or others’ popularity?

What really gets my goat is that we have let a platform that allows anyone to spout mostly unfettered nonsense — 140 characters at a time, to encroach quite so much on our thought space.

While it might give anyone a voice, it also adds immeasurable noise. Facts and opinion are expertly and deliberately mixed and those that somehow gather a following (despite the internal machinations and…