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

Wed Oct 26 06:55:11 PDT 2022

Thank you! One more question

Are there tricks to opening/accessing the archive once its downloaded?

On Oct 25, 2022, at 5:55 PM, Derek Baird via Air-L <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
wrote:

Several people have asked how to get a Twitter archive. It's super easy,
here you go:

Twitter > Settings > Your account > Download an archive of your data
*_________________*
*Derek E. Baird, M.A.*
he/him/his

On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 3:47 PM Derek Baird <debaird at gmail.com> wrote:

Reminder to get a Twitter archive asap. can take a few days (it includes

DMs.)

DB

*_________________*

*Derek E. Baird, M.A.*

he/him/his

English, German, Vietnamese, Ukrainian and Chinese editions of my book, *The

Gen Z Frequency*, are now available  <http://amzn.to/2IKyToi>on Amazon

and Blinkist <https://www.blinkist.com/en/books/the-gen-z-frequency-en>!

On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 3:40 PM sally--- via Air-L <

air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

Hi

I'm on Mastadon already, but would prefer to be on an AOIR sponsored

server...

________________________________

From: Air-L <air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org> on behalf of Fenwick

Mckelvey via Air-L <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>

Sent: Monday, October 24, 2022 1:45 PM

To: Robert W Gehl <lists at robertwgehl.org>

Cc: air-l at listserv.aoir.org <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>

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

Hi all

I am very much interested in the Mastadon opportunity. Please count me in

too.

Be good,

Fenwick

On Mon, 24 Oct 2022 at 13:52, Robert W Gehl via Air-L <

air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

Count me in on this, Aram. (no surprise there, I imagine!)

As far as I'm concerned, there is academic microblogging beyond the Musk

site -- it's on the fediverse. I'll be talking about it a bit in my

presentation at AOIR.

- Rob

On 10/24/22 13:21, Aram Sinnreich via Air-L wrote:

I’ve been thinking that AoIR should launch its own Mastodon instance,

open to all members. Something like aoir[dot]social.

Glad to discuss in Dublin.

On Oct 23, 2022, at 4:42 PM, Richard Forno via Air-L <

air-l at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:

External Email: Use caution with links and attachments.

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://urldefense.com/v3/__https://vimeo.com/129423037__;!!IaT_gp1N!0Ghlkf1rWCTGT5MfqPFpLm-cdX_SBpmFHVzAbi7e_nr3KCSBblNWocRhIbpOHQGFDd5ZOBbVTyp2WHk_ow$

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://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tinyurl.com/huntingbotsandtrolls__;!!IaT_gp1N!0Ghlkf1rWCTGT5MfqPFpLm-cdX_SBpmFHVzAbi7e_nr3KCSBblNWocRhIbpOHQGFDd5ZOBbVTyq6oRe2Xw$

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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