The Atlantic: Twitter Is a Far-Right Social Network

The Atlantic: “As a public figure, [Twitter owner Elon Musk] has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the right’s culture war against progressivism—which he refers to as “the woke mind virus”—and his $44 billion Twitter purchase can easily be seen as an explicitly political act to advance this specific ideology. Now the site itself has unquestionably transformed under his leadership into an alternative social-media platform—one that offers a haven to far-right influencers and advances the interests, prejudices, and conspiracy theories of the right wing of American politics…

“Twitter is essentially following the playbook of platforms like Rumble, which used to be the go-tos for canceled and deplatformed right-wingers seeking a soft landing and the promise of revenue. Like Rumble, which pivoted from a struggling YouTube alternative into a full-fledged far-right platform in the late 2010s, Twitter appears to be dipping into the well of popular right-wing shock jocks as a way to revive the financially adrift website…

“If Musk weren’t too preoccupied lapping up approval from trolls, reactionaries, and Dogecoin enthusiasts—a few of the constituencies left on his site that still seem to adore him—the Parler statement should worry him. Right-wing alt-tech platforms may attract investors and a flood of indignant new users with persecution complexes, but they are, ultimately, bad businesses.”

Sick of Politics? Take a Quick Quiz!

PHOTOFEST (BURNS);GETTY (MUSK)

The New Republic (not necessarily known for its sense of humor) has published a pretty fun quiz that poses the question, “Who Said It: Elon Musk or Mr. Burns?”

The quiz offers a series of quotes and you have to choose whether the snarky, obnoxious or cruel comment was made by Twitter’s new owner (whom Keith Olbermann calls “Elmo Muskrat”) or the reliably horrid businessman character from “The Simpsons.”

It’s entertaining, but it’s not easy. I missed two and scored an 83%.

Biden Admin on Fence About Paying to Maintain Twitter ‘Blue Check’

$8

“The White House hasn’t decided whether it would pay $8 a month to maintain verification of its Twitter accounts,” Bloomberg reports. Said Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre: “I don’t believe it’s an issue that made it to the president’s desk yet, not a conversation that the president is aware of. That’s something for the president that we need to talk to the president about.”

Musk Didn’t Ruin Twitter, Twitter Did

“Twitter’s problems run far deeper than a problematic owner. To begin with, it’s structurally designed to impede complex discussion by forcing users to reduce all topics to 240-character soundbites. This can be a fun way to react to Game of Thrones, but it is not a good way to litigate economic policy or geopolitical conflicts. The constricted format impedes free-flowing conversation while privileging performative sloganeering. This is why Donald Trump, who seemingly never had a complex thought in his life, loved Twitter. Why our intellectual elite has decided to yoke the public discourse to a site whose most successful users are people like Trump is less understandable.”

Yair Rosenberg