Thread by @DrSturg

Seriously, though. Let me start with thoughts from a conversation I had with a student today.

Twitter was a part of a general shift in the information ecosystem that has had both positive and negative effects on society. #Thread

https://twitter.com/DrSturg/status/1593447568335175680

2/ Positives abound. News is careful and careful is good, but news didn't cover everything. Twitter let people and organizations share important information in real time that sometimes made a real difference.

3/ You see this in student journalists who covered a campus shooting using Twitter when the web server crashed and they were locked down in the student union building.

4/ You see this in National Park leaders who objected to a Twitter blackout after some Tweets about climate change ruffled feathers, because it's an important way visitors share emergency information.

5/ You see this in the massive and impactful relief effort the #AltGov accounts mounted in 2017 when Twitter was the only way hurricane victims could let the world know of the peril they were facing.

6/ It wasn't perfect, but Twitter was also participatory in some of the ways that the most hopeful imagined that Internet for the masses could be. I've literally taught students how to engage with influencers in their fields of interest.

7/ For the isolated, the disabled, heck, even the shy, it meant having a voice. I have a bunch of locked lists on my accounts that are places where I learn by listening to people different from me. Different races, places, professions, viewpoints.

8/ It had multiple faces - some people only read things. A few Tweeted - some a lot. Even fewer used direct message features, but those allowed small conversations on which imperfect, yet quite impactful social movements were built.

9/ It helps social science researchers too - real interactions to observe and a reasonably friendly technology and access that made observations at scale feasible. (If you are interested in maybe helping the future, download and keep your archive).

help.twitter.com/en/managing-yo…

10/ Like many aspects the positives were accompanied by negatives. The ease with which people could spread information also meant ease in spreading misinformation. This became deadly during COVID.

11/ I also told that student that reporting systems and bad info detection wasn't ever going to keep up with people with bad intent in an open platform.

12/ That means finding the gems amidst the dross depended on individuals - members a public that was not really interested in or even capable of the verification that is required to do it. As set up, it was a losing proposition from the beginning.

13/ Researchers tended to overvalue lessons from the platform because it was easy to find the information. Users tended to overvalue information from the platform because the micro format removed context and made source credibility close to useless.

14/ Journalists made a whole lot of mistakes here. Some were driven by a felt need for speed. Some were driven by the egos of the journalists. Some were in finances, where the connection of work done here to revenue was never really worked out.

15/ And then there was anonymity. You didn't have to say who you were, and that was really functional for people who had a lot to lose if their true words were connected to their true identity.

16/ There's the whistleblowers, sure. We are still, from the last presidential administration, seeing what happened to people who speak out, even in legally protected ways. Some whistle blew here.

17/ Even sharing perfectly legal information was a cause for consternation sometimes, and Twitter stood up somewhat against attempted backlash because of an ethos that information is better than no information. npr.org/sections/thetw…

18/ But anonymity didn't just protect those in government or those threatened at work. People who, if identified, would face harassment because of that identity - female, anything other than cis, straight, etc - could speak.

19/ Anyone who, if identified, would face harassment because of their views - racist, sexist, etc. - could also speak.

20/ All these things: occupation, identity, view, led to "Twitter, do your thing" vigilantism that sometimes sought to take "that's a harmful view" and extend it to losing your job and your friends.

21/ Like most things in this shift in the communication ecosystem, there were pros and cons. The ugly was shocking at times. The beauty could be breathtaking.

22/ So here we are. Some things were good. Some things were very good. Some things were bad. I remember at the beginning of the platform, showing students a video explaining what the platform was. It was charmingly simple.

23/ But as things have gone the way they have, with voices and vigilantes, with information and misinformation, with politicians and citizens, I think Pogo got it right. images.app.goo.gl/4RUZ2q2hPa44sd…

24/ Seeing the voices of millions silenced at what feels like the whims of a billionaire feels very 2020s to me.

Where do we go from here?

25/ I feel a bit of a need to mourn. For all its warts, there was real community built here (I wrote a book about it!). There were many, some of which I barely understand, and, ever curious, I wish I had had the chance to understand more.

26/ But I'm not a billionaire, and I'm not in the driver's seat. So I'll be downloading my archive. I'll probably post more on my blog (link in bio) for anyone who cares.

27/ If Twitter's here in the morning, I will be, too. And if not, I'll be looking for the next big shift in how we communicate.

May you live in interesting times. Beep.