Thread by @asymmetricinfo

Apparently the New York Times issued a new social media policy today. Unfortunately, it doesn't do what every major newsroom ought to, which is tell employees they have to get the hell off Twitter: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

Yes, I understand the irony of a journalist on Twitter saying that journalists should get off Twitter.

It's a collective action problem; I can't solve it myself.

So let me list all the ways that Twitter is bad for journalism.

1) To a first approximation, Twitter produces no traffic. Facebook, yes, though less. Search, yes. Email, yes. But an article can go viral on Twitter and produce like six hits. It's all just people retweeting stuff they haven't read.

2) Nonetheless, Twitter *feels* like it is producing a lot of attention to your work. So journalists tell themselves that they have to spend all day on Twitter to promote their work, even though this doesn't, you know, actually result in anyone reading the work

3) Why does it feel like Twitter is generating a lot of engagement? Because all the journalists are on it, and journalism-adjacent folks like political staffers and think tankers. So Twitter encourages journalists to focus on performing for other journalists.

4) This leads to a lot of groupthink and tunnel vision, where all anyone is talking or thinking about is the exact same thing all the other journalists are talking and thinking about.

5) Like a lot of social media--and texting & IM--Tweeting occurs in a strange liminal space between oral and written culture. The short format encourages people to treat it like they're chit-chatting with friends (an illusion encouraged by the fact that all their friends are on!)

5a) People say a lot of stuff that is totally fine and appropriate in the context of chatting with their friends, like hyperbolic ranting ("People who drive the speed limit in the left lane should be *shot*) or mean-girl gossip (OMG WHAT is wrong with Jodi Ernst's HAIR?)

5b) Only it's written, so it doesn't stay local and in context. Out of that context, it looks somewhere between unprofessional and psychopathic, damaging you and your colleagues, and forcing your institution to either defend the undefensible, or discipline you.

6) Unless you are always uber-careful getting on Twitter is like playing Russian roulette. Most days, nothing happens, but ...

7) And the more important Twitter is to you--the more you feel Twitter freedom is a must-have in your job description--the harder it will probably be to always, ALWAYS exercise the level of restraint necessary to protect yourself and your institution.

8) Of course, Twitter's defenders would argue there are offsetting benefits. And sure. But what are they?

a) You get news really fast on Twitter. I'm all for this. I'm not against journalists reading Twitter, I'm against them Tweeting.
b) It helps journalists build their brand.

9) But the brand-building often comes at the expense of the institution. Journalists get to hone their reputation as a truth-telling edgelord while the parent company gets to deal with the irate subscribers. I get what's in that for the journalists, but not the institution.

10) The disclaimers in the Twitter bio are useless. If you publish your 5,000 word manifesto, "In Defense of Genocide", explaining that your opinions are not shared by your employer will not stop subscribers from demanding to know why they're employing a genocidaire.

11) Twitter is also, of course, used by employees to organize against their employer, and also against fellow employees. This is utterly toxic for institutions: it makes the institution look weak and indecisive, impairing its reputation capital, and it destroys collegiality

12) Again, it's obvious why the employees who engage in these attacks like Twitter, but the institution should protect itself by cutting off this line of attack.

13) In short, Twitter is not a good way to promote the institutional work; it is a good way for journalists to spend all day performing for each other, at the expense of the institution that pays their checks, and also at the expense of the institution of journalism.

14) It has been incredibly damaging for internal conversations to become external. In addition to the problems I've already listed, it has confirmed the worst suspicions conservatives have about the bias of "mainstream" journalists.

15) In fact that "confirmation" is illusory, because the average journalist is not nearly as far left as you'd think if you just sampled what the average journalist on Twitter says. But for some reason, when I tell people that, they prefer to believe their lying eyes.

16) Which brings me to possibly the worst problem with Twitter: it's a sort of optical illusion which makes journalists think a bunch of things that just ain't so. It hacks our evolutionary filters, distorting a small number of folks lazily hitting "retweet" into a major movement

17) Also, it's incredibly addictive, wasting huge amounts of journalist time in exchange for distorting our thinking, harming our reputation, fracturing our attention span, and undercutting our institution and our profession.

Twitter's a lot of fun, but it's not worth all that.

18) However, as I said up top, it's a collective action problem; as long as the other journalists are on, every journalist will also want to be on, and few will have the willpower to go cold turkey. Which is why I am begging purveyors of journalism to make the decision for us.

19) And I am making this plea on Twitter (irony of ironies) because that is where all the journalists are.

Thanks for reading, here's the column. I predict you will not click through and read it, but am hoping you will surprise me. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…