Tech + democracy + media. Now: @WeAreNew_Public, husband+dad. Then: @Upworthy, "Filter Bubble," @MoveOn ED. Pessimist of the intellect, optimist of the will.
Oct 28, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
🧵Here’s my take on Twitter as a “global town square:”
It's time to stop ceding digital space to profit maximizing companies and chaotic billionaires, and build the comms infrastructure we actually need for healthy communities and democracy. (1/n) wired.com/story/elon-mus…
What Jack Dorsey texted Elon Musk – that Twitter shouldn’t be a business – is right. There’s an irreconcilable tension between being a healthy public forum and the needs of a profit-maximizing advertising co. “Town squares” are not structured as businesses for a reason. (2/n)
Apr 25, 2022 • 23 tweets • 8 min read
So the world’s wealthiest space cowboy seems to be buying this global communications platform. RIP Twitter is trending. 🧵about what this means for the future of digital platforms: nytimes.com/2022/04/24/tec…
Musk’s stated reasons for buying Twitter are self-contradictory. He’s going to unlock Twitter’s profitability but also not running it to make money. He’s going to make the platform better for “absolute free speech” but create a subscription tier (impediment to unfettered speech!)
Oct 12, 2018 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Here’s my argument about why (esp post Trump op-ed debacle) publishers should consider separating opinion and news content onto separate domains and brands. niemanlab.org/2018/10/trumps…
Core points: 1. Journalism is (in part) a set of important norms about how to relate to facts and the truth, but the public doesn’t understand those norms. Mixing content that follows them with content that doesn’t is a big source of confusion.
