Tag Archives: Twitter

Who Will Build Another Twitter? (Hint – it’s not Meta)

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Twitter is dead; long live Elon Musk’s X. Yes- many of us are still there – rather desperately posting or reposting potential world-altering words or deeds or events. Accompanied of course by photos, videos and live streams. We’re still there because government leaders and other world figures and organizations seem to have stayed. Even though many are openly horrified at what Musk in his mindless, libertarian quest for absolutely free speech now allows and often applauds.

Wasn’t Meta’s Threads supposed to be the savior of us all? Well – have you been there lately? It’s threadBARE. Meta rushed it out the last time X had an advertiser meltdown. Word was users were deserting the now sewer-like app in droves. Millions signed up to Threads with their Instagram accounts. To find – crickets. No world leaders. No way of controlling your feed. Odd symbols for repost and the rest. Meta’s algorithm determined what you saw in your feed and what you saw, even if you followed only news outlets, their reporters and opinion writers, was riddled with Instagram-like, off-topic nothingness. And the news stories were sometimes 4 days old! Like a Facebook feed which coughs up a “friend’s” old post every time someone finds it and comments.

Meta said when it released Threads it was supposed to be another chat-type app. Meta didn’t reach out to any news organizations and in fact mostly ignored the word “news”.

Not much has changed in the months since. But of bunch of newsies have been desperately trying to clone the old, pre-Musk Twitter on Theads. Not that the old Twitter was a paragon of propriety – far from it. But at least there were guide rails, Donald Trump’s account and those of others who aped him remained suspended after the January 6th insurrection. Others got warnings. There were basic rules and at least sometimes, they were enforced by Twitter employees who were hired specifically to – in a sense – keep the peace on the platform. Yes some people were harassed and doxxed. But that’s true of all social media. No one has yet figured out or cared enough to figure out a set of pan-platform public decency regulations to keep snark and threats to a minimum.

Here’s the thing. We need Twitter. Or a new Twitter. Even pre Musk there were always 2 Twitters. The one I saw – filled with news, analysis, legitimate video and comments from legitimate users. The ones with real names and real profiles and often with the blue checkmarks bestowed by the old Twitter to verfiy those entities and people. And of course the other Twitter – the ugly, cruel, hate-mongering Twitter so loved by Elon Musk. That one we definitely DON’T need. Let Musk keep it.

The rest of us need a Twitter because in an age when factual news and its evil twin misinformation circle the globe in nanoseconds – there has to be at least one place where leaders and those who report on them can “meet”. Where ordinary people hungry for real information can find it. My old Twitter was as close to that as we’ve gotten. And you can still find a great deal of legitimate news and information and comments on Elon Musk’s Twitter. Um, excuse me, X. But it’s only there because there is just nowhere else right now. And everyone still there for that reason knows they can’t stay much longer unless Musk the libertarian somehow has an epiphany, cleans out his septic tank and comes up with another, free method of verifying those who should be verified.

So I’m back to the beginning. We need a (new) Twitter. And we need it quickly. In the US we have a Presidential election in less than a year. Perhaps the most consequential election since Abraham Lincoln’s days. We are involved in two wars now even without boots on the ground. We need a legitimate platform for legitimate information and discussion. Maybe instead of all the rambling talk about AI and Chatbot GT someone who actually knows how to use the new technology can use it to create a new platform. With all the old Twitter’s “important people” and organizations and government entities. And an even better way to let users discuss politics, culture and change. And their intersection.

But get a move on. The sewer is cracking quickly. Major advertisers left again after Elon Musk seemingly endorsed very anti-Semitic comments. Despite Musk’s subsequent trip to Israel and live interview hosted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – X may not make it even to the New Hampshire GOP Primary.

Credits: Get it on black and white twitter logo png hq download

Dear Elon!

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So for days I’ve been listening to all the analyst dissection of your $44 billion plan to buy (or not to buy) Twitter. And reading your tweets about counting bots and creating open source algorithms and having “fun” by opening the platform to just about anyone no matter the lies or misinformation or disinformation. Like reinstating President Trump. And his buddies. All of whom were banned for life after the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol.

So Elon (I hope you don’t mind my using your first name – kind of what to expect when you restore that old soapbox to Twitter). Anyhow – Elon – you say you want to take a public social media platform private. But I’m not sure you really understand about Twitter. You really CAN’T own it. Nor -actually – can the current shareholders. Nor the board members who represent them and whom I’ve been told never actually use the platform.

Seriously Elon. WE own Twitter. Really. All of us who use it. That, of course, includes you – but no more or no less than each of us. And have you actually looked at who “us” are? Well there’s me of course but I really don’t count. And all the yahoos who think they’re being really cool by being snippy and snarky and just plain stupid. You know – like a lot of them who tweet back at you. No – I’m talking about literally every leader in the modern world – except perhaps those who have banned Twitter in their countries because it IS owned by the rest of us. In fact I would call Twitter the newsfeed for the world. Presidents and Prime Ministers and Kings and Queens make their official policy announcements on Twitter. Movie stars and rap stars and universities and companies — and on and on — tell their Twitter followers first. With all the rest of us watching.

Twitter is too important to belong to one somewhat erratic, imperious but brilliant entrepreneur Elon. It’s not Facebook or Instagram or Telegram or any other social media app. It’s too important to the world to be judged on Wall Street’s standards of new monthly users or total advertising dollars. Maybe it started that way but it’s morphed into something very different now. Something quite unique. Something which is the center of official and unofficial world information.

So – Elon – you really can’t have it. It’s not your plaything. Give it back to us. To everyone who thinks or writes or governs or sings or has a winning tennis swing. Just go back to getting us to Mars . It’s really more interesting and needs your genius. Twitter doesn’t. It just needs everyone who matters in the World – including you – to keep tweeting. So those of us who don’t matter quite so much can continue to feel a part of something really, really BIG.

Dispatch from a Boeing 777-200ER

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I’m flying home. From Prague to New Jersey. Connecting though Paris. Pretty normal. Done it many times. Ok – it’s never exactly fun. Security checks, passport controls, crowded waiting areas and fully booked planes. With just enough legroom between seats for a mouse to sit comfortably. You know – the usual nightmare.

But no. Not today. Today we have a specially-created French nightmare. An air traffic controllers’ strike. A suddenly called one day strike in solidarity with and for the same reasons as the same one day strike by French transport unions on the Metro and railways. Because French President Hollande wants to change the country’s cushy work rules which bloat the government’s budget and make hiring, firing and doing business in France more difficult than in the rest of Europe. Ergo: France is strike central. Even more than it’s always been. The air controllers have been on strike a total of 43 days since 2009 including their last 2-day walkout just over a week ago. Both during the extra busy Easter holiday/spring break travel period.

Where is Ronald Reagan when you need him.

Eventually my husband and I get to Paris. Two hours late. Of course missing our connecting flight from Paris to Newark International Airport. But all is not lost. I still have plenty of data left on my Czech iPhone package. And before that delayed flight from Prague even starts loading @Delta Assist on Twitter has us rebooked on a 5pm Air France flight to JFK. Somewhat out of the way but at least we’ll get home tonight instead of sleeping in the airport.

So we get on the JFK flight. Almost on time. And what do we see after walking through the spacious business class section? The 3-4-3 seating configuration I had just read about on new or retooled Boeing 777-200 planes. Translation – there is always a middle seat instead of the normal 2-4-2  or 2-5-2 seating used for decades on international flights. Giving airlines an extra 20 or so revenue producing seats per plane. 7 hours in a middle seat. Oh no!

Boeing 777-200 3-4-3 seating in coach

Oh yes. But this time it actually works in our favor. In the back of the plane – where it narrows – even Boeing can’t squeeze in that 3rd seat. So there are 3 rows with just 2 seats on either side of the 4 middle seats. With a little elbow room between the window and the seat and a few inches more leg room. Ok they’re next to the bathrooms. But here’s the thing. These are PREMIUM seats in tourist class. Because all the other seats are now even worse. We got them because they weren’t sold and the plane was otherwise full. Lucky us!

Until the average size guy in front fully reclines his seat into my lap. He speaks good English so I politely ask him to recline only halfway. I mean – we haven’t even had dinner yet! He looks at me like I came from another planet and says with annoyance, “but I have the right to put my seat back”. Yes I say in so many words – but – there isn’t much legroom and it would be polite if you didn’t. He looks at me, basically says F you without the F, and then fully reclines his seat back. His female partner gives my husband a break and pulls up a bit.

Maybe this guy actually paid extra for that seat in the 2 seat row ahead of ours. Maybe not. But his mother must have never taught him about consideration for others in a tightly packed world. Or maybe he was just born with the “entitled” gene like so many others of his generation.

Of course one can argue – and I do – that it’s really the airlines’ fault. They decided to extract every penny of revenue from their hapless passengers some years back. And of course it’s paid off royally with some of the best earnings in years in 2015 as they unapologetically kept every penny of the windfall from lower jet fuel prices instead of cutting ticket prices the way they raised them when oil went through the roof. And as they kept shrinking seat sizes and leg room over and over to squeeze another row or two of seats into the configuration. So shouldn’t the airlines also be cutting the recline angle drastically on that smaller seat back? When someone like the jerk in front of me fully reclines – he’s literally in my lap. Try eating when the food is hitting your waist! (He left his seat back ¾ reclined even during dinner!) I can’t even get up from the seat to go to the (very) nearby bathroom. And this is even with a few inches more legroom in these “premium” seats!

So OK you say. You didn’t pay extra for the seats, you’ll get home by midnight and life could be a lot worse. You are so right. But. Your rights (and those of the surly passenger in front of me) end where mine begin. Call it Apple against the FBI (before they dropped the case). When rights clash each person (or entity) has to give a little. That’s how most of us in democratic nations manage to live together without killing our neighbors.

Maybe Print Isn’t Dead After All

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I have one foot in the print world and one in the digital one.

The Real Thing

I still get my New York Times delivered every morning. But I usually read it on my iPhone or iPad, since a print subscription gets me through the digital pay wall.  My magazines are still piled in somewhat dusty stacks in the living room. But when I DO read them (again – print buys digital) it’s mostly on the iPad.  You get the drift.

I also read most of my books on my Kindle app. Currently I have maybe 10 in varying stages of consumption. I like the freedom to “carry” my weightless books wherever I go.  I read one entire book last summer on my iPhone during daily Prague Metro trips.

Digital is always there. Especially when you’re always on the go. But news apps and e-books have to compete constantly with Facebook and Twitter and all the other social media apps you carry along. Which can – and DO –  suck up all the air in the room. Or time in your life.  Note I said I read ONE book last summer. And that only because there’s no wifi connection underground.

I am not alone in this discovery, apparently.  The US Census Bureau data just released this week show that bookstore sales rose by 2 and a half percent last year — the first such increase since 2007! In fact, e-book sales fell in 2015 — while old fashioned print sales rose.  For many  –  that pile of  books on the kitchen table still seems to compel us to pick one up and retire with it to the couch.

Fact is — much as I love my digital print apps – when a newspaper is sitting in front of me, I can save one or two of the sections to read later. Which can be a lot harder to do with constantly refreshing digital content burying the older stories. You can say news is meant to be read immediately. And you’d be right. But there’s a lot which passes for news these days which can wait a few days. Just ask the geniuses at Twitter who are trying to destroy the much loved chronological timeline tweet feed in favor of Facebook-like, algorithm-chosen “most important” tweets.

As for magazines – unless I’m traveling – I tend not to read the digital versions — even after I’ve diligently downloaded them, chuckled approvingly at Time’s digital front page (which always comes together in ways weird and wonderful) and left one open at a video extra on my iPad as an incentive. The real thing is so much easier to leaf through, gulp down a thought or column or photo — and move on.

So I live in a world where print and digital mesh. Somewhat seamlessly. A kind of Never Land for pre-Millenial generations. Flexible. As portable as I want to make it. Always available anywhere in any form.

Right now I’m going to grab the Science Times section of today’s print version of the Times and read a few stories. While I eat a greasy, mayonnaise loaded tuna sandwich. Try that on the iMedia glass screens. You’ll never get them clean.