Why I’m still on Twitter

I like Twitter. There are many things not to like about the site nowadays, but to me it remains a very interesting and vibrant place in which to spend my time. But after Elon Musk’s takeover, it has often been difficult to justify the reasons why I’m still spending time there. A large number of friends and acquaintances has quite simply quit and moved to greener pastures, so why do I stay? This blog post is a bit of a personal explanation of why I continue on Twitter, mostly for myself, I’m trying to respond to specific reasons given by people to leave, while I’m dealing with my own reasons for staying. As always, your mileage may vary.

Elon Musk is a bad person

Yes, I think that he may very well be, at least according to his growing list of truly objectionable tweets. He’s still seen as a hero by some, but for many of us, his actions are unjustifiable.

Then, why support him?

I don’t think that staying on Twitter helps Musk in any objective way, and on the contrary, I would argue that if you oppose his political views and trollish behaviour, then the best thing that you can do is to be on Twitter. The fact is that there is quite simply no way that Twitter can make back the money that he spent in buying it. Musk spent $44 billion in purchasing it, most of this money was obtained through loans. Twitter was already losing money before Musk purchased it, according to the WSJ Twitter had not had “an annual profit 2019, and posted a loss in eight years of the past decade. The company’s net loss narrowed in 2021, to $221.4 million from $1.14 billion the previous year.” This means that to make back his investment, even to make enough to be able to repay the interest on the debt, the company would have to turn around its finances spectacularly. It is calculated that he will have to pay back $9 billion USD in the next seven years, and given that the company was already losing money, this seems like a tall order to say the least.

90% of Twitter’s income came from advertising, but Musk’s shenanigans have been driving away advertisers, so new revenue streams have to be found. Given that Twitter has been losing advertisers, there are only two main other sources of stemming the losses, first to cut costs, which he has done by firing large numbers of employees, and the other is to convince people to pay for Twitter, which would still not be enough to make back the loss in advertising revenue.

So the more Twitter remains open, the more money Musk will lose, and if the company’s fortunes don’t improve, then it is likely that it will end up declaring bankruptcy, a very real prospect.

The myth of the “good” tech company

There is an aside discussion to be had about Twitter and Musk, and it is perhaps that there is a myth of companies that do the right thing, and users can support them. Meta, Apple, Google, Netflix, are all tech companies that do not have remotely the level of general animosity against them that Musk has been able to generate recently. One thing is clear, these companies are not your friends, they’re not good in any sense of the word, they’re conglomerates intent on making money. Sure, many of these companies put on a good show, they change their social media icons at the socially acceptable times, they repeat the platitudes that will get them seen as good players.

But for the most part all of this is just a front, there’s no such thing as a good company in the tech world, there are just companies. Look at what happened with FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried, the former darling of the left, the effective altruism guy, the biggest donor to Joe Biden. He was surely one of the good guys, he drove a rickety old Corolla and gave lots of money to charity! But it was all a sham, he was also secretly donating to Republicans, and his charities were built on defrauding his customers.

So yes, Musk is deplorable, but so is most of the tech world, it’s naive to believe that all of those money-grubbing CEOs have our best interest at heart.

There are no good alternatives

This is an entirely subjective point, and I do not want to discuss the merits of other platforms. In the last few months I’ve tried a number of Twitter options, none fit the bill, and not a single one does what I use Twitter for. Again, this is just me, but seeing just how many people are still on Twitter, it seems like I’m not alone. Sure, there has been a migration to other platforms, and some people appear to be enjoying their time there, which is great, but the alternatives are just not for me for various reasons.

Firstly, I use Twitter primarily as a broadcast platform, some people are drawn to other apps for the community element, or for discussion, that’s not what I use social media for.

Secondly, all of the alternatives are, for lack of a better word, too white. It seems to be that people of colour and from the Global South didn’t migrate to other spaces with the same enthusiasm as academics, in fact, most of my international lists and timelines are still very busy and vibrant. The same happens with other communities that haven’t managed to migrate.

Thirdly, and this is very personal, I’m good with Twitter, I understand it, I have very useful lists, I have a highly-curated timeline, and I just do not have the energy to replicate the amount of work that I have put on Twitter elsewhere. If the app dies tomorrow, I will probably just quit social media.

I don’t like running

I’m worried that by abandoning Twitter, progressives are abandoning an important battleground to the right. Leaving a “clash” social media because there are objectionable people there will eventually lead to filter bubbles and opinion silos where everyone agrees with you.

I don’t believe in abandoning this ground at the first sign of trouble is healthy for those on the left. If we leave, they win.

Twitter is still great

This is again entirely subjective, but I haven’t stopped enjoying Twitter. In the last couple of months I have noticed that some people have left, particularly from academia and the media, but the site remains vibrant and lots of fun and useful information. One fear people had was that there would be an increase in abuse on the site, but I haven’t noticed any personally, and the block and mute options are still working as intended. I don’t follow Musk, and when things get stupid, I just mute mentions of his name. I was already very good at filtering out undesirable content, so at least in my own corner of the bird app, I haven’t noticed a big change.

I think that there are a few things that are surprisingly working well. There are now several verification schemes going, with the “legacy” verification still existing as a mark of the old regime. Companies and institutions will be getting different colour of check-mark, and the Twitter Blue verification, after the initial PR disaster, has been also gaining some adepts. The funny thing is that the paid blue check comes with a sign that says that the person bought it, which allows the rest of us to stay clear, it seems to be favoured by crypto wannabes and Musk fanboys.

The addition of the view counter has been… interesting. It’s fun to see how many views a post has gotten, and it is even more fun to see just how little engagement the reply guys get. There’s a danger that the experiment will mean that fewer people engage with content, but this has always been true of Twitter, most people are browsers and content consumers, only a few of us are the ones generating most content.

Concluding

I don’t know if Twitter will survive until the end of 2023. Chances are it will bankrupt before that, but for now I’m willing to stay and continue enjoying the ride. I understand why people cannot share my attitude, and respect it, this is not an attempt to bring anyone back to the bird app.

And if I was not still on Twitter, I would have missed one of the best tweets of 2022, Greta Thunberg’s demolition of Andrew Tate. Enjoy.