After 28 years of being "online," I've learned some things (and yes, for those of you keeping score, I made my first website when Prodigy gave me access to the WWW in 1994).
There is no way to "win" without moderating. Nilay Patel's article this morning - theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitter-acquisition-problems-speech-moderation - captures the core of the issue: EVERYONE WANTS MODERATION.
The sites people flee — even those who, like me, used to shout "Information Wants 2B Free" from our AOL chatrooms and MySpace profiles — are those that don't aggressively moderate content. The product of these platforms is not tweets or toots or posts; the product is content moderation. It is what defines the user experience and what people want to see.
People aren't fleeing Twitter (or preparing to leave) because they are liberal or conservative or wearing funny hats; they flee Twitter because the user experience will change. Successful social networks incentivize good behavior and disincentivize bad behavior. Advertisers don't want their brand name next to people calling for the murder of politicians; they want it next to cute pictures of babies and animals.
@jerrylevine
Exactly.
The Musk brand is toxic to the point of when is this guy a. Getting arrested b. Having Teslas become Edsels both in popularity and in toxicity c. SpaceX getting treated like banks that failed in 2008, getting eminent domained. d. Twitter itself getting close to bankruptcy.