The (Twitter) Beat Goes On

Very funny, very smart, very true - “We’re the trustworthy social media network, that’s doing our best to balance laws and norms, and is really trying to be welcoming for speech, so please give us the benefit of the doubt.” @mmasnick https://t.co/Izsn2oNbkP

— Iain Levine (@iainlevine) November 3, 2022

This TechDirt article is brilliant and a perfect illustration of what it means to be in charge (I’ve had the Boss’s job and I don’t want it back). I won’t quote more than one line from it, but before that, let me briefly outline it. 

For every solution Twitter under Elmo provides ('Free speech!'), there is a problem.  As the solution is implemented, new problems arise needing more solutions, or the solutions themselves need new solutions.  Read the article, it's worth it.  But the funniest part?  Every solution needs new staff to monitor/write code/solve the problem and stay on top of it (the problems are never those of a redesign of a car part or adding a new feature to an automobile, a "one and done," in other words.) So the running solution to every problem hypothesized is:  more staff.

Elon Musk is reportedly planning to cut Twitter's workforce in half

Yeah.  Elmo doesn't have a clue what all those people do.  He's about to find out.

The one line I'll quote?  It's the last one, summing up the experience of learning how to run an international social media platform:

Level Twenty: “Look, we’re just a freaking website. Can’t you people behave?”

The whole thing put me in mind of Ted Hughes:

Crow's First Lesson

God tried to teach Crow how to talk.

'Love,' said God. 'Say, Love.'

Crow gaped, and the white shark crashed into the sea

And went rolling downwards, discovering its own depth.

'No, no,' said God. 'Say Love. Now try it. LOVE.'

Crow gaped, and a bluefly, a tsetse, a mosquito

Zoomed out and down

To their sundry flesh-pots.

'A final try,' said God. 'Now, LOVE.'

Crow convulsed, gaped, retched and

Man's bodiless prodigious head

Bulbed out onto the earth, with swivelling eyes,

Jabbering protest--

And Crow retched again, before God could stop him.

And woman's vulva dropped over man's neck and tightened.

The two struggled together on the grass.

God struggled to part them, cursed, wept--

Crow flew guiltily off. 

I'll show myself out....