Some Twitter realism

Facebook too

In 2016, it felt like a battle against a wall of garbage with what was being posted on Facebook (and elsewhere) about Hillary Clinton. It was a neverending war against lies, bizarre conspiracy theories, and disinformation.

The fact that it was revealed that an army of Russian bots with fake accounts were responsible seems lost on most people. Putin was posting propaganda designed to weaken a President Hillary, but Putin and his oligarchs achieved a uniqe two-fer — they beat Hillary and got Trump.

Six years later, the Democats seem to have built themselves some messaging pushback on Facebook and Facebook itself has begun policing itself better (not well, but better).

In the past two years, Twitter has been Trump-free and unwieldy. Enter Elon Musk a man of ego and massive wealth. Elon has bought Twitter and an insane debate has ensued.

Will Trump return? Will Musk censor the Left and his detractors generally? Should people leave Twitter in protest?

A bit of realism (and pragmatism) from a long-time friend, Joel Lawson.

“It will take X months for Elon Musk to complete his acquisition of Twitter. I have an idea: let's slice off tremendous amounts of energy to focus on that--something over which we have zero control--instead of assigning that time and energy to, say, learning who chairs committees in your statehouse, who's on your library board, who's running your election-day processes, etc., and who/what they're targeting next. You have more power than you know. When democracy is at stake, perhaps pragmatism and focus become exponentially more important? We are subjecting ourselves to a never-ending merry-go-round of energy distractions.”

Those distractions keep the Democrats and the Left off-message.