[Air-L] Will Academic Twitter Exist Under Elon Musk?

Sun Oct 23 16:42:05 PDT 2022

Hi Stu -

Like many, I'm hoping for the best, but expecting the worst for Twitter. 
  I find Twitter a fantastic tool for staying in-touch and updated on 
colleagues' research/ideas/musings, sharing ideas of my own and perhaps 
soliciting feedback/contributions, following conference hashtags (hello 
#AOIR2022!), some current events and socialization...and the odd dog or 
nature photo  I'd hate quit it, but I've not ruled it out ... but I 
could live w/o Twitter, even after 13 years.

Without getting too deeply into politics here (which can be hard given 
the broader issues raised) -- as to your last paragraph Stu, I'm with 
you.  Since 2001 I've been increasingly concerned about the future of 
America's lttle-d democracy, view 2016 as a populist 
accident/experiment, saw 2020--1/6 as a test run. feel 2022 will be a 
good indicator of where things are heading having learned from 2020, and 
firmly believe that 2024 likely will be *the* pivotal point for our 
country one way or the other.   (Though politically, I think this 
political decline started in the mid-90s when one party decided to treat 
the other as the 'enemy' and embraced a scorched-earth brand of politics 
that considered compromise akin to treason, which got cranked to 11 
thanks to silo'd cable news and SM platforms in ensuing years.)  And 
that's all I will prognosticate about here politically -- other than to 
conclude by saying I'm worried not just about now, but that we will not 
be able to fix things and get "back on track for the future" anytime 
soon.  :/.

I do admit that despite being an old-school geek/hacker, in recent years 
I've wrestled with the warm-and-fuzzy nostalgic notion from the '90s 
that "information wants to be free". In some ways, it's been great for 
individuals and society -- in other ways, as Borat might say, "not so 
much."  Of course, that change in thinking also could be a function of 
midlife as well as current events.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But one of the world's dominant modern comms mediums transitioning into 
an unaccountable private entity run by a person .... however you view 
Musk .... definitely is concerning on *many* levels.[1]. By contrast, at 
least FB is a regulated public company and has the appearance of some 
'objective' review of controversial things via its Oversight Board.

As for aca-Twitter?  As I said, I'm still in wait-and-see, but it 
wouldn't surprise me to see many tweeps both from academia and elsewhere 
posting their final tweets either due to protest or for professional 
reasons / protection by year-end or early next year, depending on what 
'innovations' are introduced to the platform post-acquisition.

Stay tuned, I guess...

-- rick

[1] WaPo reported Friday that DOD/DOJ 'might' be investigating the 
Twitter deal and SpaceX-DOD contracts due to national security concerns 
with Musk's public views and his foreign investors.  Could be something 
there, could be a flash of desperation to block the sale ... but again, 
the question of accountability comes up.

On 21 Oct 2022, at 7:43, Shulman, Stu via Air-L wrote:

> Will academic Twitter exist under Elon Musk? Will there be more or 
> less
> data? More or less urgent issues to study? Will the "Fail Whale" show 
> up
> again after 75% of the staff is gone? Who will do content moderation? 
> Is
> this a FastTrack to the next violent uprising in the US?
>
> I am curious what people on this particular list think is about to 
> happen.
> After 12 years featuring the formal study of Twitter data I am 
> completely
> burned out. Not on the challenges, nor the art and science of the 
> tasks. I
> still love talking to students and faculty who have chosen Twitter as 
> the
> object of their research. The data has never been more widely 
> available and
> the positive uses of it can be inspiring.
>
> It's the voluminous amounts of hate I see in my own research. Also the
> systemic weaponization of Twitter against democratic systems of 
> government
> globally. As an original Board Member and the Treasurer of a 501 
> (c)(6)
> called "The Big Boulder Initiative" I was working as a liaison to 
> academia
> with a group of industry people on the "long term preservation of the
> social data industry." The industry survived, but the ideals aspired 
> to
> have not. We offered this 2-minute Lawrence Lessig-inspired vision of 
> the
> challenges about 7 years ago:
>
> "Why Texifter Joined the Big Boulder Initiative"
> https://vimeo.com/129423037
>
> Lessig was right. On the Internet, architecture is the most powerful
> regulator. The architecture of Twitter, with corporate ads featured on
> insurrectionist and other problematic timelines, is now a persistent 
> threat
> to democratic systems of government without a single day of Musk
> governance. The insurrection January 6, 2021 was planned in the open 
> on
> Twitter. There were advertisements from familiar brands in every 
> seditious
> timeline. Evolving tactics using Twitter trains (tagging 30 
> like-minded
> users), notification-rich replies, the ReTweet functionality, 
> gamification,
> domestic and foreign meme warfare, the idolatry of influence via
> misinformation, bots and trolls, as well as paid amplifiers of all 
> manner
> and variety. The "digital soldiers" we found in the Canadian election 
> of
> 2019 (fake Americans who hated Trudeau but liked RT, Russia Today and
> Southfront) were openly planning a QAnon-inspired "storm" which 
> ultimately
> was the first coup attempt in two centuries of American democracy. I
> briefed the US/UK Intelligence Community (staff from the Joint Chiefs,
> JSOC, etc.) February 12, 2020 via the Strategic Multilayer Assessment 
> using
> open source information from Twitter. Things have since gotten much 
> worse,
> not better, since that briefing. These were the slides in early 
> February
> 2020:
>
> https://tinyurl.com/huntingbotsandtrolls
>
> Looking at the current threat-relevant data, I have a 
> sick-to-my-stomach
> feeling about the next 60 days in U.S. history. We may be late to 
> notice
> the end of small "d" democracy is imminent or inevitable because of 
> the
> Internet effects we cannot fully see, capture, measure, or control.
>
> -- 
> Dr. Stuart W. Shulman
> Founder and CEO, Texifter
> Editor Emeritus, *Journal of Information Technology & Politics*
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