The Twitterverse Strikes Back

Elon Musk becomes largest shareholder of Twitter, refuses to join board. Twitter shareholders sue Musk. Advantage: Musk.

Elon Musk, SpaceX Chief Engineer participates in a SpaceX Demonstration Mission 2 Launch Briefing at the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building following the departure of NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley for Launch Complex 39A to board a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for launch, Wednesday, May 27, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” mused one of Twitter’s founders long, long ago, obviously living in a galaxy far, far away: “I was wrong about that.”

“I think the internet is broken,” is what he says today, back here on planet earth. “And it’s a lot more obvious to a lot of people that it’s broken.”

In fact, what has been revealed in the dark underbelly of social media, is but the dark underbelly of humanity itself, though that is hardly a comfort. Twitter, and social media in general, have become toxic virtual spaces where advertising barely chokes out a steam of vituperations and negativity.

It’s death by algorithm. In our dystopian modern media landscape, the very worst of what corporate media offers constantly floats to the surface. The more heinous, shocking, narrative-driving, hyperbolic, and/or rage-inducing the headline, the more ad-clicks.

As a wise man once observed about our time and probably others: More money, more problems.

Given what social media has become- or considering some of the earlier crimes of Myspace and Craigslist…