Why I just quit Twitter

Let’s get a few things straight right off the bat.

First, freedom of speech has nothing to do with Twitter. The First Amendment protects our speech from suppression by the government. It simply does not apply to privately-owned platforms like Twitter.

Secondly, much of what Twitter restricts could be restricted without violating the First Amendment even if the government owned Twitter. Libel (which Twitter actually permits, and is engaged in quite freely by extremists on both ends of the political spectrum) isn’t covered by the First Amendment. Neither is subversion or false information likely to cause actual harm to people or property. Restricting COVID misinformation isn’t a violation of free speech. It’s common sense and common decency. In Justice Holmes’s famous formulation, “Freedom of speech does not grant the right to falsely shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre.”

Vulgarity and, I would argue, hate speech cannot be constitutionally restricted by the government. But the Constitution in no way prohibits a private platform like Twitter from restricting them, and I, for one, have until now been grateful that for the most part, Twitter has done so in the past. Apparently, it will not do so, or at least do so consistently, now that Elon Musk is in charge.

Conservative opinions are not being suppressed on Twitter under the current rules. Proven lies, particularly vicious and widespread slander of individuals and groups unsupported by actual evidence or even logic, hate speech, treason, and the kind of misinformation that has cost tens of thousands of lives are being restricted, and it would be irresponsible and immoral to do otherwise. But it seems that under the new ownership Twitter will throw responsibility and ethics to the winds.

A strong argument can be made that Twitter was toxic all along. Nothing resembling reasoned discussion and debate takes place there. Instead, malice, invective, wild claims and accusations, and groundless conspiracy theories abound. These thrive on a platform like Twitter, which is ideally suited to promote assertions but woefully inadequate to hold them up to the light of scrutiny. The very format militates against reasoned argument and is guaranteed to produce heat, but very little light.

I, personally, am not the most patient of people, especially when it comes to those in the grips of the Dunning-Kruger effect; who consider themselves possessed of a great deal of accurate information, the judgment to discern truth and falsehood, and the intelligence to form reasonable opinions, but who in fact possess none of them. Debating with fools is a fool’s errand at best, and too often I’ve been foolish enough to have allowed myself to be drawn into it by the folly of others. One cannot, as the saying goes, reason people out of what they were never reasoned into. Reason is useless in conversations with people who are either unwilling to resort to it or simply lacking in rationality. Suffering fools gladly is not my strong suit, alas, and all to often I have found myself descending to their level on Twitter, resorting to insulting people with whom it is impossible to reason. I do not like the person I become when I use Twitter the way it’s intended to be used. So I don’t do it often.

But Twitter has had its purpose. It’s been a platform for this blog. And it’s a place to post memes and links to important news stories or columns and editorials I think need to be widely read.

But with Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, a bad situation will be made infinitely worse. Conspiracy theories and other insane assertions will be everywhere, spread in an environment whose very nature protects them from challenge. Lies will be easily spread, as Donald Trump proved so convincingly before reason prevailed and he was denied access to Twitter. The “tweet” format is perfectly suited to spreading lies and other mere assertions. But truth- and above all, the information needed to refute those lies- is often more complicated than mere assertions. Facts need more words to be asserted in the face of lies than the lies need. That’s the crucial reason why the restrictions against the most dangerous lies were so important on Twitter. It’s easier to start a fire than to put it out, and in a forum like Twitter, lies and paranoia have a huge built-in advantage over truth and sanity.

Now, with Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter under the false flag of “free speech,” truth and sanity won’t have a chance. Twitter is about to become nothing but a cesspool of assertions which cannot be as easily challenged as they are made. It will become a snakepit of lies and distortions, of shrill paranoia and bigotry from both ends of the political spectrum in which reason and sanity and temperence and moderation will simply have no chance. If it ever was a forum for rational debate and discussion, it will cease to be one now.

I suppose I could continue to use it as a forum for posts from this blog, and memes, and links to articles I think need to be read. But in a forum in which logic and evidence and truth will now be drowned out by lies and hate and conspiracy theories and every other paranoid and evil thing that can be so easily spread but not challenged in such a forum, it’s not hard to see what will happen next. There will be nobody left on Twitter who would read them or get the point if they did.

Sane and reasonable people are going to stop beating their heads against the wall of willful and self-impressed ignorance. They will stop trying to confront easily-tweeted lies with more complicated facts and truth. The fever dreams which are the far right and far left Twittersphere- the fantasy worlds of the hard-core Trumpers and the the most delusional of the Woke- will be the sum and substance of Twitter. There simply will be nothing of any substance or sanity left worth mentioning. All that will be left will be assertions, no matter how malicious, false, destructive, or downright crazy, and no way left to refute them.

It may take a while for some to realize it, but with hate speech and proven lies and medical misinformation and the vulgarity of the darkest places in our hearts now set loose upon Twitter, it will no longer be possible for truth and reason and sanity to make a stand there. Before long, the reasonable and the thoughtful and the kind-hearted will abandon a forum for which they are so ill-suited and for which the simplistic and the cruel and the ignorant and the malicious are right are empowered and at home.

Twitter under Elon Musk and his twisted notion of “free speech” will have no place for intelligence or real debate, and even less for nuance. It will be all about shouting, not discussing. Well, if the truth be told, maybe it always has been. But now there will be no limits to the lies and the libel and conspiracy theories in a forum in which they are easily spread and essentially impossible to refute. And in a society already so deeply immersed and crippled by the ease with which lies can spread between minds and hearts eager to believe even the craziest of them, Twitter will be a forum in which there is no limit to how crazy and dark the lies may be, and the light of reason, truth, and knowledge will be extinguished.

One cannot reason people out of what they were never reasoned into. And under Elon Musk, Twitter will no longer be a place where reason has even the tenuous place to stand it has now.