Chuck JordanNov 16, 2022
One of the big lies I totally believed in my teens & early 20s was that David Letterman really was Stickin It To The Man when he mocked NBC and (then-owner) General Electric. It was all performative nonsense, obviously, but I’m reminded of it every time I see the end result of billionaires in control of “democratic” platforms that claim to give commoners a voice.
Show threadChuck Jordan

People love pointing to the “Arab Spring” as an example of how social media is essential, which completely (deliberately?) ignores how corporate-owned platforms being useful for organizing resistance movements is an unwelcome side-effect AT BEST.

No doubt a lot of people at Twitter genuinely believed in its value as a democratizing platform, but acting like that is its main mission statement is either disingenuous or outright deceitful.

Nov 16, 2022 at 8:28pmWeb
Show threadChuck JordanNov 16, 2022
Follow me for more examples of restating things everybody already knows as if they were new insights!
Show threadlashmanNov 16, 2022
@SasquatcherGeneral it's good to remind everyone from time to time
Show threadlahosken 🇺🇸Nov 16, 2022

@SasquatcherGeneral

A while after Arab Spring, scholars figured out that Twitter didn't really help the movement happen. Twitter _did_ help folks in the USA find out what was happening. So, not useless, but not _nearly_ as useful as rumored at the time.

But Jack Dorsey kept talking about how much Twitter helped, ignoring the people pointing out that it wasn't all that.

I learned this only after I'd been working at Twitter for a few months. It was pretty disillusioning.

Show threadChuck JordanNov 16, 2022
@lahosken I wasn’t aware of that! I thought that the idea of how integral Twitter was had just been accepted into the collective memory. I’m embarrassed that I was naive enough not to recognize it as an attempt at branding/marketing.
Show threadlahosken 🇺🇸Nov 16, 2022

@SasquatcherGeneral At the time things were happening, people really did think Twitter was helping. The US gov't really did care about when Twitter would go down for maintenance. And that was news.

It wasn't until later that scholars more rigorously figured out who was using X kind of communication for Y purpose. By the time they'd drawn some conclusions, Arab Spring was no longer news.

Show threadBaptiste BourdonNov 16, 2022
@SasquatcherGeneral it was actually integral to its core initial design, the app originated from TXTmob, an app responding to a need for militants to communicate rapidly during protests, and this is why, despite the neoliberal nature twitter was seeped in, militant communities still held on for dear life to this app, and still do today. Direct and borderless communication, even quote tweets, were integral to what made twitter essential to marginalized ppl, protesters, journalists and academics around the world. Mastodon doesnt aspire right now to be that, and it's okay, but the tool that was twitter is going to leave a hole.
Show threadChuck JordanNov 16, 2022
@baptistebourdon I guess my larger point is the (obvious) observation that it’s a bad idea to treat centralization/corporatization as a “necessary evil,” that can be exploited for the purpose of a greater good. Yes, there are occasions where profit and public good can peacefully coexist, but I think we need to start acknowledging that they are the exception and not the rule.
Show threadVirtue signal 💉💉💉🇺🇸 🇺🇦Nov 17, 2022

@SasquatcherGeneral

Let's also not overlook how Saudi and Qatari money entered the picture.