Raising Hell: Issue 73: Owning Twitter
"Each day Humble supplies enough energy to melt seven million tons of glacier!" - Humble Oil full page print advert, Life magazine, 1962.
I don’t normally like talking about Twitter drama. As far as I’m concerned, Twitter is a tool that has its uses but it’s often too easy to lose the signal for the noise. Right now, though, I’m up to my neck in a new book and I haven’t been paying attention to much these last few weeks. All I have to talk about right now is my mostly uninformed take on the latest Twitter drama and by god if I have to suffer this nonsense, I’ll make sure you will, too.
For those who otherwise don’t care Twitter but are still willing to hang on and see where I’m going with this, here’s what you need to know: there was once a special class of Twitter users whose identity was “verified”. Often they were celebrities, politicians, academics, journalists — people at risk of being impersonated by bad faith actors. They were identified by a “blue check” which, among some portions of the internet, came to be considered a kind of online class system. These people would make fun of figures like Elon Musk, until the world’s richest man took on $44bn in debt to buy Twitter. In doing so, he set out to make it profitable. His big idea was to kill the old verification system and allow people to obtain a similar sort of status by paying $8 a month for “Twitter Blue”. In mid-April, he officially killed the old blue check in an effort to force everyone to pay up. They have not. Now the Blue Check is the mark of those willing to collaborate with the world’s richest man — and Nicholas Nassim Taleb who is in his own class altogether.
As a tech story, the basic trope is compelling: rich guy buys friends. Musk is the rich kid with the fancy car and the nice coke. The people who want to hangout with him are weirdos and Twitter is a bookclub for nerds who think they’re better than him. Musk bought Twitter as a flex, kicked everyone out and is now charging an entry fee if they want to get back in. Except, no one’s paying and everyone’s laughing at how he’s just set fire to a big pile of cash.
On the one hand, I have no problem with people making fun of Musk on general principles: he’s the world’s richest man who has watched one too many Iron Man movies and thinks he’s Tony Stark. On the other, it has been frustrating to watch those mostly centre-left progressive figures stay on their edge of their seats as they document every twist in the story with gee. In venting their displeasure, they are also playing Musk’s game. The reality is the world’s richest man doesn’t give a fuck about those baying for his opinion, or those who want to burn him in effigy. In fact, he’s engaged in this escapade explicitly to piss people off. I wouldn’t be surprised if he eventually wound up the company just to spite his enemies. He’s the type of guy who, if he doesn’t get his way eventually, will take his ball and go home.
Beneath of all this is a much deeper story about what is currently taking place. If you’re someone who finds things and/or makes a living by doing words-for-money, Twitter has historically been extremely useful. It’s a pretty decent place to hawk your wares, talk, find new information and contact people when there’s no other way to do so. It’s as good a place as any to share tips on how to geo-locate guys in Ukraine doing war crimes and a good seismograph of social or political trends. What lands on Twitter today often hits the news agenda tomorrow.
If Twitter is a source of data and a means to share methodologies, its other feature is the ability to quickly embed and share material. Protest movements have used it to quickly share video and photos and at this point Twitter has been hard-wired into the external communications of government institutions the world over. I can find the latest report from the UNHCR on Syria, a resignation letter from a scandal-plagued senator and pictures about the local council’s writers festivals. The fight against Robodebt began on Twitter and would not have culminated into a Royal Commission without the ability to confront decision makers with the reality of their decisions. In a world without Twitter, there was no way A Current Affair or Newscorp would have picked up the story on behalf of those targeted. In fact, it would have been the reverse.
In the right hands, Twitter can also be pretty good in a crisis. Whether you’re watching US helicopters violate your national sovereignty to assassinate Osama bin Laden, or you’re in Lismore watching your friends pull screaming, traumatised people from rooftops over a livestream (in defiance of the authorities who are telling you to stay away while they handle it) Twitter can be a useful way to get the word out. It is certainly better than Facebook where the existence of closed groups allows for cult-like followings to develop and genocides to be carried out. I know this because I regularly use these tools myself when liveblogging events at The Guardian or running down background as part of an investigation. Institutions like the ABC may provide these critical services during bushfires and floods, but in a pinch it helps to have multiple channels of communication, not less.
And yes, it is always possible for these dynamics to be abused. The internet was invented for espionage, after all. But a hammer can fix your roof or cave in a skull. Yes, it is also true that not everyone engages with the platform is a sophisticated user. And yes, the terminally-online are insufferable, as are the shitposters trying to make themselves feel more powerful by bullying others for clout. Twitter is not real life and we forget that at our own risk.
But in amongst people’s feelings about Twitter, we lose sight of the real story of Musk-era Twitter: the extent to which this tool is being dismantled to suit the interests of a powerful billionaire. A good example is the network of climate journalists, researchers, scientists and activists who used the platform to quickly share information. The scientific study that confirmed Exxon didn’t just know about climate change, but accurately predicted its course began on Twitter. One researcher messaged a German climate scientist and they talked about testing whether the underlying-math of the company’s in-house research was correct. Their findings didn’t just show Exxon knew; it showed they were right. In other instances, these networks have reacted to moments where climate deniers, fossil fuel companies and even governments have begun new efforts to spread misinformation. Claims can be rapidly fact checked and the background of a particular individual can be quickly run down to inoculate their audiences.
That is, until lately. With the nerds out, the creeps willing to pay to ensure their visibility are taking their moment. Take this post by climate scientist Ed Hawkins who posted a graph pointing out the basic physics of how burning fossil fuels amplify the greenhouse effect. Hawkins was immediately mobbed by climate-denying Twitter Blue subscribers whose posts shouting him down were promoted above reasonable people.
It is easy to hate Twitter and many of the silly people who inhabit its backalleys, but if it were all frivolous, billionaires wouldn’t be trying to crowbar their way into its server room. The problem for Twitter going forward is that it has disempowered the bulk of its serious userbase while empowering a tiny portion of dishonest shitheads willing to fork out cash to double their chances of getting attention. This does not make a good business model and does not bode well for its future — and should it die, it would be a loss and make it much harder for those attempting to fight the good fight to continue.
Like investigations? Love politics? Walter Marsh, friend of Raising Hell, has a new book about on the early days of Rupert Murdoch through Scribe. Walter delved into the archives to find out when the future media baron broke bad. Pre-order now.
For the Fortnight: April 12 to April 26
Reporting In
Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …
Nothing but book, baby. All day every day. Call it: “The Bookening” — or whatever. …Whaddya want from me? Am I supposed to be a writer, or something?
You Hate To See It
A dyspeptic, snark-ridden and highly ironic round-up of the news from our shared hellscape…
I, For One, Welcome Our Collective Destruction
Mathias Döpfner may be the poor man’s Rupert Murdoch, but the billionaire owner of a European publishing empire has come out in full-throated support of climate change. In a leaked 2017 email, Döpfner — which is not a real name — expounded on his belief humanity has always been “more successful” in periods of warm climates so “we shouldn’t fight climate change but adjust to it”. The message was part of a longer chain of messages in which Döpfner explained his general outlook as: “Free west, fuck the intolerant Muslims and all the other riff-raff” — which, so long as we’re indulging in a little essentialism here, is historically speaking, an extremely German worldview.
The Sensibles Strike Back
Woodside Energy boss Meg O’Neill, formerly of Exxon, really wants you to know extremism isn’t the answer. Speaking at the National Press club, the head of Australia’s most significant domestic fossil fuel producer, currently planning to move ahead on its $16bn Scarborough gas field, used the spotlight to attack a “vocal minority” out there who wants to “shut down the industry and the jobs and livelihoods that go with it.” Who are that vocal minority you ask? Oh, just a couple of podunk little outfits known as the International Energy Agency and the UN. It was also a curious choice by O’Neill to present hard science as “extremism”. What exactly did Exxon do when its scientists independently confirmed the underlying science of climate change and forecast events over the next three decades with startling accuracy? Tell the public? You kidding?
Hitler And Marx Approach The Bar Table
What do Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler have in common? Only one of them directed the invention of the death factories of the Holocaust, Operation Barbarossa and Fanta, but according to Murdoch University’s Cav Maria Saraceni — an actual, literal, Italian knight — their real crime was actually writing things down. Yes, you heard correct, the ancient art of basic literacy has itself become a subversive act in Western Australia circa 2023. While outlining her case in the prosecution of the Western Australian nurses and midwives union for 3,590 breaches of an Industrial Relations Commission ruling not to go on strike, Saraceni delivered what she believed to be a coup de grace when she pointed to the historical fact that Hitler and Marx both wrote down their plans to colour her opening statement. Confronted with an attrition rate that was threatening the broader stability of the state’s healthcare system, the union had asked for a 5% pay rise but was refused. When the workforce decided to strike in response, its leadership had — shock — sent a note informing its members of the decision was is apparently enough to justify the $27m fine being sought. And what did WA Labor have to say about all this? Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said the imposition of any fine would be "entirely" a matter for the commission.
HECS’d To Death
Speaking of cost of living issues, as we come towards the latest budget week, one issue on the minds of everyone under forty is the size of that HECS debt. HECS was that good debt — the one you can’t declare bankruptcy over but which you didn’t have to start paying back until you earned $52k and wiped when you died. That was, at least, until everyone’s favourite Saudi arms
dealerlobbyist, Christopher Pyne got his sticky mitts on it while in government and lowered the threshold to $45,880 and pegged it to inflation. And with that inflation rate headed nowhere but up — and the RBA determined to kill any drive towards pay increases — the interest rate on HECS payment is due to rise 7% this year. Will the federal government under Labor do anything to assist? Who knows! Though it is worth remembering that Paul Keating originally wanted HECS to be pegged to the inflation rate from the very beginning, so one might consider this moment to be a completion of his vision.Schadenfreude
In other good news, someone FOI’d the biggest HECS debts in the country so you may look upon their mighty works and feel something other than despair:
Failing Upward
Where we recognise and celebrate the true stupidity of the rich, powerful and influential…
Remember John Hewson? The guy who, during the 80s, went to work for the World Bank and came back to Australia with a head full of ideas? The guy who then wrote a 650-econommic policy manifesto that would bring neoliberalism to Australia while running for the prime ministership against Paul Keating and lost, handedly? We here at Raising Hell’s elite satire unit certainly do, so we had much joy this week when Hewson took to Twitter to call for the base rate of social security to be raised — though we’re not sure who truly deserves recognition in Failing Upward this week. It might be Hewson, who like other past Liberal leaders appears to have done an about-face in retirement, but it also is probably the eminent Dr Jim Chalmers himself who, in his role as Federal Treasurer explicitly refused to accept a report he commissioned that called for social security to be raised to $18 a day, after releasing the report after business hours and not notifying said committee — and all in the name of fiscal responsibility. Federal Labor, of course, is still committed to Stage 3 Tax Cuts and will fork out billions for submarines, but the one policy that may actually make them popular — and prevent actual harm to hundreds of thousands of Australians — is apparently entirely off the table. Why? Because, as the former Coalition government that lost in a landslide loved to remind us: the “best form of welfare is a job”.
Good Reads, Good Times
To share the love, here are some of the best or more interesting reads from the last fortnight…
Twitter user Ronni Salt had this pretty good thread outlining The Voice for those who struggle to follow what it means for how the government works.
Greg Jericho had a great analysis in The Guardian about how economic settings have been consistently set to favour the old over the young.
Before You Go (Go)…
Are you a public sector bureaucrat whose tyrannical boss is behaving badly? Have you recently come into possession of documents showing some rich guy is trying to move their ill-gotten-gains to Curacao? Did you take a low-paying job with an evil corporation registered in Delaware that is burying toxic waste under playgrounds? If your conscience is keeping you up at night, or you’d just plain like to see some wrong-doers cast into the sea, we here at Raising Hell can suggest a course of action: leak! You can securely make contact through Signal — contact me first for how. Alternatively you can send us your hard copies to: PO Box 134, Welland SA 5007
And if you’ve come this far, consider supporting me further by picking up one of my books, leaving a review or by just telling a friend about Raising Hell!