Kathy Sheridan: What happens to Twitter under a megalomaniac?

Those who have not succumbed to Twitter have probably made a wise choice. They still believe that most human exchanges are conducted in good faith. They go to sleep on schedule, with an unjangled mind.

Then again, they missed the single-word tweet dropped by Elon Musk on Monday. In Greek. The word translates as “dialectic”, ie reasoning, contention, the art of investigating the truth of opinions.

Was it a coded message to the markets? Was it about Musk’s deranged approach to the platform, which all going badly, he will own on Friday?

With 110 million followers and a particular kind of genius, the gnomic utterances of the world’s richest man can knock normal, intelligent people off their axis for hours. “What lesson took you the longest to unlearn?”, he asked soon after, and like all cult leaders, he had the gratification of seeing his own platitudes quoted back at him – viz, “Don’t build moats, build tech trees”.

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They confide in him, discerning something of themselves in the great man. Being nice isn’t easy, muses one by way of reply; “being nice always invites the risk of rejection and that alone is a truth that cripples some of the most talented people I’ve ever met”. Another fanboy posts a video starring superhero Musk striding into a Twitter building with a big play gun, taunting and humiliating staff before blasting them with a coloured mess – “I’m back and you’re fired”.

Cultists never look around corners it seems.

Musk’s $44 billion (€44.26 billion) purchase of Twitter began as a grab for instant gratification, a total absence of due diligence, followed by a gigantic case of buyer’s remorse and some court actions set to culminate in his ownership of a site he definitely didn’t want anymore. All of which was awkward for Musk. His Tesla stock has traded downwards from $369 last March (just before his Twitter bid) to $198 on Monday.

[ Twitter employees ‘battle-weary’ as Elon Musk takeover deal drags on ]

And so, with wearying alpha male predictability, he must reassert his demi-god status with a spectacular. As a self-described “free speech absolutist”, he will begin by re-instating Donald Trump’s Twitter account, the global megaphone that brought the reality TV star all the way to the White House by Trump’s own admission: “Without the tweets, I wouldn’t be here… I don’t have to go to the fake media”. But we know now that Trump is an “unparalleled danger”, in the words of Bob Woodward. And if Trump is back on Twitter, can the far-right, the white supremacist nuts and the Russian propagandists be far behind?

Musk also reportedly plans to lay off three-quarters of Twitter’s staff, whittling the company down to just over 2,000. The staff first heard this from the Washington Post.

So, what happens to Twitter under a megalomaniac?

No-one doubts that the company is overstaffed, but data scientists are horrified at the dangers of abruptly removing that degree of content-moderation. It would put site users at risk of hacks and exposure to images of child rape, unleashing a hail of problems on to the remaining, demoralised staff, left without the institutional knowledge to fix them.

Move fast and break things used to be the slogan of the maverick young start-ups. Elon Musk is 51. If the Musk-Twitter court discovery process contributed anything to the world, it is surely the sycophantic, unimaginative, jaded inanity of the texts between Musk and his tech billionaire buddies.

Marc Andreessen, also 51, casually used a Twitter direct message to offer Musk, “$250M with no additional work required”. “Thanks!”, said Musk. They toss out phrases like “hard reboot” and “Day Zero, Sharpen your blades boys” to cut through an inconvenient workforce. They fantasise about massive revenue opportunities and sweeping societal changes – such as magicking up free speech – that only they can usher in. They imagine their early success will naturally transfer to any area they choose to conquer. What they’re actually doing is winging it, as Charlie Warzel writes in The Atlantic. Winging it with no care for consequence.

Some reading this will shrug, because they disdain everything about Twitter. That’s rather like an ivory tower judge mistaking a footballer’s nickname for an opera. Twitter is the real world now.

On Sunday, anyone with half an interest in the British leadership fiasco was glued to the site, keeping bang up to date with the bite-sized news, the insights, the divisions, the hypocrisy, the cynicism and the real-time shredding of what remained of the Tory party’s dignity.

[ The Irish Times view on Elon Musk and Twitter: a pyrrhic victory ]

At its best, Twitter can be an oracle of resourceful, generous academics and experts from every field of learning. On Sunday, the primary sources were the politicians themselves, tweeting and deleting, battling to stay ahead of an army of Twitter sleuths with tech skills and instant recall.

If there is a leveller by which academics, politicians, the legacy media and curious people can communicate in 280 characters, Twitter is the very imperfect template. Follow who you will, mute or block the irritants and report the hate speakers.

Last week when an English academic tweeted, “only an idiot would draw a straight line from the escalating [political] crisis to 2016″, I began to type “Only an idiot…” – upon which a large official Twitter box popped up to ask if I really wanted to be so rude (to paraphrase). I deleted “idiot” and felt the better human being. Twitter is trying, it seems.

If all this sounds like a lament, it’s because I will miss it. No amount of muting or blocking will keep Trump out of our timelines. Trump is the tipping point.