I REMEMBER WHEN everyone who was on Twitter in Ireland in mid-January 2007 could fit inside the conference centre of Tipperary Institute. I'm curious how those 150 people, including 15 from our college campus, view Twitter becoming a private company.
Back in January 2007, Twitter didn't have content moderation policies. It wasn't until 2008 that Twitter hired someone specifically to combat abuse on its platform. Today, the teams overseeing moderation and safety on Twitter have grown to hundreds of employees. Those employees are personally invested in the spirit of healthy conversation. They want to crack down further on hate speech and misinformation but now they have a new boss who clearly wants to revert to the Wild West Wrangling we enjoyed in early Twitter.
Like Dave Winer, I'll be hanging around on Twitter as it gets Musky. I expect to hear several of my outspoken MAGA friends will come roaring back as they rediscover the town square of tweeting. They will join the lists of people I follow on Twitter.
So as Elon Musk stamps his mark on a microcontent publishing house, I will occasionally tap into interesting threads through listening posts I've set up using inbound feeds to Readwise, Instapaper, and Inoreader.
[Bernie Goldbach teaches creative media for business on the Clonmel campus of the Technological University of the Shannon.]
