It looks like they’ve finally done it. For years, the far right has repeatedly tried and failed to set up a social network of their own – one where they can spread conspiracy theories and sow hate without any of the pesky content moderation that happens on the big tech platforms.
Numerous sites including MeWe, Parler, Gab, Gettr and Trump’s own Truth Social have popped up but none of them have really gained any traction. Indeed Parler, the self-described “uncancelable free-speech social platform” Kanye West tried to buy last year, shut down in April. “No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more,” Parler’s parent company said in a statement.
You know why that is? Because there’s no longer any need: Elon Musk has successfully turned Twitter into a site where extremists have free rein. There isn’t even a head of content moderation any more: on Thursday, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, resigned.
Twitter lurched to the right almost immediately after Musk acquired the social network last year and started bringing back banned accounts. “Elon now controls twitter. Unleash the racial slurs … ” one account proclaimed after the purchase was completed. The use of racist language soared as bigots felt emboldened. Twitter has felt (extra) toxic ever since Musk took over but in recent weeks things have become even more extreme. It feels as if the rightwing takeover of Twitter is complete.
Ron DeSantis’s decision to announce his presidential run in a Twitter audio event last month was one major marker of this shift to a more explicitly partisan Twitter. “Fox News used to be the place where conservatives went to break news. But the rightwing ecosystem has turned on the network, leaving Twitter as the center of media gravity for the Republican party just as the 2024 election heats up,” Axios noted at the time.
Bolstering Twitter’s credentials as the new center of the conservative ecosystem is Tucker Carlson’s recent announcement that he’ll be launching a new version of his show on the platform. Before getting fired from Fox News, Carlson was the highest-rated cable show host in history, and he used his immense platform to push testicle tanning and white supremacy.
The Daily Wire, a rightwing media outlet, also recently announced that it is jumping into bed with Twitter and will stream its top podcasts on the platform. The partnership got off to a tricky start, however, when Twitter cancelled a deal to premiere the site’s anti-trans documentary What Is a Woman? for free on the platform because of two instances of “misgendering” in the film. Musk quickly backpedaled on that after the Daily Wire’s CEO, Jeremy Boreing, wrote an outraged thread on Twitter about the documentary being labeled “hateful conduct”.
“This was a mistake by many people at Twitter,” Musk tweeted in response. The billionaire, whose trans daughter has cut ties with him, added that he thinks it is polite to use someone’s preferred pronouns but not doing so “breaks no law” and is perfectly acceptable on Twitter.
Also acceptable on Twitter? Having the CEO boost an account parodying Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. On Sunday the parody account joked that it had a crush on Musk and the billionaire responded with a fire emoji, massively increasing the visibility of the account. “FYI there’s a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility,” the congresswoman tweeted on Tuesday. “It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread. I am assessing with my team how to move forward.”
AOC is not the only one assessing how to move forward when it comes to Twitter. A number of big advertisers have pulled marketing spend and, in April, NPR stopped posting content after Musk labeled the network “state-affiliated media”. (Twitter has since removed that label but NPR hasn’t started posting again.) In an interview, NPR’s CEO said staying on the site could hurt its reputation. “I would never have our content go anywhere that would risk our credibility,” Lansing said. “At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter. I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again.”
Whether Twitter can be trusted again depends, in large part, on what happens when Linda Yaccarino starts as CEO, which she is slated to do in a few weeks. Yaccarino was chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal and was presumably chosen by Musk to be CEO because he wants to bring in advertisers again and re-establish credibility with brands. That means content moderation and clamping down on hate speech. Whether Musk will allow that to happen remains to be seen.
In the meantime, everyone (myself included) who is still on Twitter has some hard questions to ask themselves. There is no pretending any more that Twitter is anything other than a far-right social network headed by a CEO who revels in chaos and is platforming extremism. So why are news organisations still on it? Why is anyone who considers themselves to have liberal values still on it?
Ego is probably the main answer to that question. A lot of journalists have built up very large followings on Twitter. Nostalgia is another factor: Twitter used to be fun and useful and it’s difficult to leave it behind. It’s time to start trying, though: we can’t keep hand-wringing about Twitter turning into a cocktail party for Nazis while stubbornly refusing to leave the room.
