Mark Antonio Wright explains at National Review Online why a recent change in ownership has not altered his opposition to Twitter use.
I must respectfully dissent from the National Review editorial and my colleagues … who have written about Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter as if it’s some unalloyed good thing. …
… If Twitter under Elon Musk becomes a slightly more enlightened entity when it comes to free expression, that’s as much a positive benefit to the United States and her citizenry as if the corner drug dealers — under new management of course! — got a better batch of crack and fentanyl, with perhaps fewer side effects.
Twitter — as with social media in general — is terrible.
It’s terrible for you. It’s terrible for me. It’s terrible for this country.
Elon Musk may bring back the Babylon Bee and end the shadow banning of conservative Twitter stars, but — who cares? Musk’s improvement, such as it may be, should be held in its proper perspective. In the decade and a half since the rise of the big social-media platforms and their walled-garden version of the free Internet, it’s not evident at all that they have been a net improvement to the lives of individuals or the nation, bringing only distraction, shallowness, and rancor to a country in need of seriousness and depth.
Twitter is a commercial product, developed and distributed by very smart, very capable professional engineers, whose whole purpose is to destroy your ability to concentrate, distract your attention, steal your data, enslave you to the algorithm, and curate your communications, all while serving you ads and entrusting that your work days, evenings, and family time are invaded by the lowest-common-denominator drivel on the Internet.
Elon Musk can’t fix Twitter — because Twitter is Twitter, and Twitter is crack for your brain.
