When Everyone Agrees, Run!
This report summarizes Musk’s accomplishments at Twitter, the power dynamics of politicized networks, and the paradox of unanimity.
Wow, what a week with the Twitter wars. Here’s a recap of how it ended:
The #swarm’s battle with Musk hit a critical threshold when Twitter announced it would be blocking accounts that promoted competitors (this is considered something that only bad companies do).
NOTE: This move was needlessly provocative since it could have quickly and quietly been done using technical means — putting warnings on cross-links, blocking access to follower lists (the graph), or degrading the reach of promotional accounts.
The new rules “pulsed” the swarm, and it mobilized. Within hours, the mobilization became a maelstrom of moral outrage (“how dare he”) and departures (“I’m going. You can find me on XYZ”) even among non-aligned independents.
To halt the collapse, Musk offered to resign from the company if people voted him out. The news of Musk’s potential departure led to a rapid dissipation of the swarm. The poll ran for 12 hours. 17.5 m votes were cast, 57.5% voted for Musk to leave, and 42.5% voted for him to stay.
If Musk does leave, the war with the swarm won’t end. However, any new CEO will start from where Musk left it.
What Musk Left Behind
In a couple of months, Musk significantly slowed the slide of social networking towards a long night of pervasive authoritarian controls on thought. He bought us time. From the perspective of Twitter, the center of the social networking world, he brought it back to where it was in 2017 — before it began to ramp up its efforts to control political and social outcomes. Fortunately, some of the changes he put in motion are likely to stick for a while. In his short time there, he: