How Could We See This Coming?
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
When Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, gutted the staff, and changed one of the most recognizable brand names in the world to the name of a little-known company he founded in the 90s, he promised to usher in a new era of free speech on the internet. He lied.
In many ways X is less of a free speech platform than Twitter was; Musk has been credibly accused of silencing his critics on the platform, as, more than once, multiple journalists unfavorable to him have had their accounts suspended, with either a flimsy excuse or no explanation at all. But, beyond that obvious hypocrisy, Musk has molded the former Twitter into something far more dangerous, a gamified pay-to-play libertarian digital dystopia, selling itself as a “free speech” platform.
In the real world, healthy free speech has a significant limiting factor, in that, while one has the freedom to say whatever he believes without fear of being imprisoned, he’s not free from the social consequences of his words. The Ku Klux Klan is free to march down main street, but the local Exalted Cyclops, when his picture is published in his hometown newspaper, is not free to keep working for an employer who doesn’t want to lose his life savings, because most people don’t want to work with, or buy products from, a Klan member. When a social network allows for anonymity, it removes this important social factor. Most platforms implement content moderation around hateful speech as a shim for this, but, as pre-Musk Twitter showed, that format is easily abused; what constitutes “hateful” speech can very easily be determined by a small group of ideologues.
Yet, what Musk has done is far worse. Not only has he removed most of the content moderation (except for journalists who criticize him), he’s created perhaps the most fertile ground for the propaganda of stupid since the creation of the internet. Here are the parameters:
Unfettered anonymous account creation. One person can create infinite identities.
Next to no content moderation. Only actions such as posting the real name of an anonymous user or threats of violence might get an account suspended.
No serious management of bot accounts, despite promises to crack down.
Shifting the algorithm to a pay-to-play model.
Anyone can buy “verification” (also known as a “blue check”) including anonymous users, something that used to be limited to well-known personalities.
Buying a blue check for $84 a year ensures that one’s posts will be seen by more people. For $395 a year, users will be “boosted” even more.
Blue check users can opt into a “revenue sharing” model and be paid for how many eyeballs they drive to their content.
Any post which links to content outside of X, including news media, is purposefully limited in its reach.
What this combination of policies has attracted are three particular subcultures:
(Bot?) accounts posting mindless video engagement, in an attempt to game the system and get paid more than they’re paying for verification and boosting.
Outrage merchants posting controversial statements (also known as “rage bait”) that they know will get angry interaction that will result in them getting paid.
Far-rightists, including open white nationalists, who can register infinite, anonymous “alt” accounts, and create a false consensus for their ideas.
The result of this is that X has become a platform primarily for the type of dangerous stupidity that Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned about. Banned from all of the other major platforms, it seems that every white nationalist on the internet now calls X home, to the point that one cannot even peruse an uncurated feed without immediately coming across a post blaming black people or Jews for society’s ills. Smart, thoughtful right-wingers have abandoned the platform in droves, leaving rightoid lunatics to run the asylum, including major personalities who feel a new sense of confidence to pull off the mask. Most leftists, who would at least be a limiting factor, have jumped ship to Bluesky, an alternative platform founded by Twitter’s creator, Jack Dorsey, which is itself a bubble. Even worse, the owner of the asylum is, at best, one of the outrage merchants, but he also regularly interacts with, and promotes, the far-right element. Musk is snorting his own supply.
The situation is so ridiculously untenable that, a few weeks ago, X’s AI chatbot, Grok, which derives much of its learning model from posts on the platform, began praising Hitler and even renamed itself “MechaHitler.” X has become the place where Darryl Cooper, the podcaster who infamously claimed that Winston Churchill was “the chief villain” of World War II, can point his roughly 350,000 followers, many of whom are explicit neo-Nazis, at anyone who should question him. It’s where Turning Point USA personality Jack Posobiec, who has posted multiple Nazi codes, and who regularly makes “Franco Friday” posts, where he praises the mass-murdering ally of Hitler, can do the same with his 3.1 million followers. I know, because I’ve been on the receiving end of revilement from both of them. Both are blue checks and are likely being paid by Musk’s company for this behavior.
Bonhoeffer was right about the futility of trying to battle stupidity with reason, you can only walk away and leave stupidity to itself. Musk has turned the platform where one used to be able to interact with the world’s most interesting figures into a festering cesspool of the type of stupidity that used to be mostly relegated to the dark corners of the internet.