I remember when I first joined Twitter back in 2008. It was my first foray into social media, and it took me a while to get the hang of it. The first time I saw the value of Twitter was when I interacted with one of my favorite bands at the time, and I began to enjoy it.
In times past, I spent a lot of time on Twitter. I began some social media friendships that have developed into genuine friendships and even cultivated relationships that led me to PJ Media. There was a ton of value to Twitter for me and plenty of others for a long time.
Gradually, Twitter seemed to turn into a forum for people to shout at each other. I’ve gotten into plenty of useless arguments on the platform and even said some things that I regretted from time to time. Twitter users summon that “keyboard courage” to treat others in a way they never would in real life.
This is a terrible paraphrase, but Erick Erickson loves to say that Twitter is the way it is because the demons that Jesus cast into the pigs (read that account here) immediately jumped on to Twitter as soon as the pigs crashed into the sea. He’s got a point.
Of course, we all know of a conservative (or two … or three … or a dozen) who has dealt with Twitter’s one-sided censorship. Here at PJ Media, we’ve undergone a Twitter suspension for telling the truth that the “first-ever female four-star admiral” is really a dude in a dress. We’re not the only ones. Heck, my colleague Matt Margolis was permanently kicked off Twitter for telling the truth about transgenderism.
Earlier today another PJ Media colleague of mine, Rick Moran, wrote about how Twitter will soon ban ads that promote “climate change denial.” Will the wokeness abate? Probably not, especially when the, um, leading lights of the left like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton decree that anything that bucks The Narrative™ is “disinformation.”
Twitter used to seem like a Wild West where anybody could say what he or she wanted — the way it should still be. As Rick put it, “In the marketplace of ideas, both sides should be allowed to spout their nonsense and let the people decide what to believe.”
Related: Russia Hoaxer Hillary Decries Online ‘Disinformation’
Plenty of people have thought that Elon Musk would swoop in and save the day. After all, he’s shown us time and time again how to use Twitter to humble left-wing politicians, and there’s something appealing about the idea of his buying Twitter as a way to stick it to the man. There’s no doubt that Musk would make Twitter a fairer place for conservatives than it is now, and who knows? Maybe Matt can make his triumphant return to the platform!
But is Twitter itself a problem? Is it too far gone as a place for robust debate and free speech?
It’s easy for people to gang up on others on Twitter in a way that they’d never dream of doing in the real world. Charles C. W. Cooke points this fact out in his newsletter this weekend.
“In the real world, nobody would scour a drinks party to find someone who is ten percent less politically hardcore than they are, encourage them to say something with which they disagree, and then start shouting to everyone else about what a weakling or bigot they are,” he writes. “In the real world, nobody feels the need to perpetually up the ante until it becomes ludicrous — ‘I think we should fire the governor’; ‘well, I think we should boil him in oil’; ‘well I think we should—look, have you seen Clockwork Orange?'”
Here’s the thing: Twitter ceased to be fun long before the wokes began to drive true free speech away. Musk could end the era of censorship, but he can’t stop users from shouting at each other and generally acting stupid. I don’t know what it takes to fix Twitter’s other issues, and I’m not sure that anybody else would either.
