While we wait the decades it will take to learn where Elon Musk falls on the chaotic-good, chaotic-neutral, or chaotic-evil spectrum, there are two things he could do, immediately, that would "fix" Twitter. By "fix", I do not mean solving the eternal problem that some people will always have a louder megaphone than others. By "fix", I mean, achieving the goal of turning Twitter into a useful, public "Town Square" and understanding the difference a group of people, peaceably assembled for civil discourse and mob rule.
While I am not an originalist, in any sense of the term, it is, often, useful to reflect on the origin of some of the metaphors we use. The notion of a "town square" merits such reflection.
"Because of this mingling of peoples and opinions, cities became spaces for citizens to make their political voices heard. Before and during the Revolution, cities served as vital civic arenas where political ideas and aspirations were publicly expressed by people from a variety of backgrounds."(The Role of Cities in the American Revolution).You could stand up in any town square and shout, at the top of your lungs, any opinion you cared to express. With this great, perhaps transformative, liberty, however, came a few caveats. Let us not fail to remember that society at this juncture was puritanical, paternalistic, misogynistic, classist and racist.
At best, if your diatribe stirred the hearts of enough of your countrymen, it would be included in the governing documents of the society or, perhaps lead to tea being dumped in the harbor or even open revolt. At worst, however, your diatribe could lead you to a beat down by fists or rotten fruit, public humiliation, arrest, prosecution, hanging or worse. Peaceably assembled groups can quickly become mobs when affronted. Words have meaning and words have consequences. These consequences, whether imposed by the mob or civil society, moderate the tone and content of the speech.
Electronic speech in the modern age has no consequences. In fact, perhaps worse, bad behavior is often rewarded. The size of anonymous mass is too large for either civil prosecution or mob persecution to provide effective guard rails.
Eliminate Anonymity
Back in the day, there was no anonymity; Silence Dogood pseudonyms aside. "Oh, that's Dave, the town drunk, spouting off again. He's harmless," one might hear. Or, "that's that radical lawyer, John Adams. He's dangerous," perhaps another. Everyone knew everyone; remember at the time of the revolution, Philadelphia had a population 30,000, well below some Universities today. The first thing Elon Musk should do is end anonymity. The initial purpose of the "blue checkmark" was to do this, albeit in an unfair way. If the gods of Twitter decided you were important in some way, they removed your anonymity and you spoke as a representative of yourself. They 'verified your authenticity'. A basic security transaction; authentication. My bank authenticates me every time I use their app. On, Twitter, the unwashed masses can and do remain anonymous or, at least, unverified.
Twitter, with it's new Twitter Blue service has fumbled authentication in favor of more easily implemented verification. In other words, Twitter says, for Blue, you have to say you are someone, but they don't authenticate that you are who you say you are. Thus, Mario flipping off Musk. Twitter should insist that your username is the name on your credit card (No prepaid anonymous credit/debit cards). You can change your nickname a hundred times a day, but that only changes the costume you wear, not your identity. The same with corporations and public offices and officers though there may be other paperwork involved.
Eliminating anonymity changes user behavior. Think of the hesitation that entered your thoughts just reading the suggestion above. Are you really going to let the world know that the real you is the source of all those slightly snarky, slightly pervy Dad jokes? Not to mention your antisemitic, anti-rule-of-law, or election denying diatribe's. Your Mom's adage to "think before you speak" becomes critical. You could now be publicly shamed, sued for slander or libel, or maybe even punched in the nose for speech that goes outside of society's guardrails.
Throttle the API
The second thing that Elon Musk could do to fix Twitter is limit the number of tweets per person per hour. Humans have limits of intellectual and physical energy. You can only stand in the town square or stand in filibuster for so long. Even Ben Franklin and his press could publish only so much information in a finite amount of time. There were no APIS, AIs or bots. These electronic artifices dilute the conversation. They increase the noise without increasing the signal. Limiting the number of tweets per account per hour to something on a human scale (20 tweets an hour? 60?) would be a huge step forward. Every tweet should be written by hand or at least published at that pace.
Media companies clearly have a role to play in modern society. As their role becomes more important to society they must weigh the common weal against their greed and fiducial responsibilities. Removing anonymity and limiting the speed of conversation to a human scale are two ways to do just that.
#Twitter #Elon Musk #FixTwitter
