Musk's Twitter Joins the Ranks of Bottom Feeders in the Marketplace of Ideas

Get your free subscriptions to this newsletter now before he builds a SpaceX port next to my condo

As of yesterday, this newsletter is being subjected to the whims of Elon Musk, owner of the Twitter social media platform.

Musk has decided that all the 35 million active subscribers who rely on the Substack platform as part of their media consumption can no longer expect to have access to any of Twitter's interactive features.

This means my efforts at getting the word out about my craft and points of view can no longer be “liked,” shared, or quoted. Conversely, I can no longer provide twitter links to underlying documentation in my five-day-a-week newsletters. I will post my columns on Twitter until he bans me completely, just because.

(And all past links & connections, etc., have also been erased, something that has the effort of undermining my credibility as a writer.)

I’m a small fish is a very big pond of perspectives disseminated through a forum that makes it easy to create, publish, and share ideas and analysis. I tried going through the process of having my own web site and found it to be expensive, time consuming, and impossible to get search engine love.

Words & Deeds has an average readership of a thousand people a day, about half of them are subscribers, and a tiny percentage of those actually throw a little coin my way. That’s wonderful and I’m grateful for every click.

Given that my craft isn’t intended to be a money-maker, I pay all donations/paid subscriptions forward to others whose efforts I support. Currently, those recipients include Men Yell At Me, The Present Age, Popular Information, and Spytalk. (I intend to add a few more this month)  

I think this bad news from Mr. Musk has been coming for a while as I’ve watched the share of incoming readers from Twitter to Words & Deeds decline.

Some recently published underlying code indicates a system of suppressing content Musk disagrees with and vice versa. That’s why you’ll have a harder time seeing content favorable to Ukraine as opposed to content about Russia; it’s not an absolute ban; think of it as fog obscuring your vision.

What is it with all these reactionaries licking Putin’s boots?

To be clear, none of Musk’s actions amount to censorship. As I keep telling whiny trolls on a regular basis, censorship is about government suppression of speech, kinda like Gov. Ron DeSantis' actions in Florida.

Twitter is a private business and, as such, has the right to dictate what content it chooses to allow or promote.

When I discovered Twitter back in 2009, it also functioned as a sort of public square, where ideas and views were presented. What users saw back in those days was mostly dictated by their usage patterns, a few randos, along with a smattering of otherwise popular content thrown in. It was not all stuff I approved of, but users had the opportunity to block accounts they found offensive.

This functionality eroded over time as troll farms, many of which were run by autocratic foreign powers, and assorted political consultants learned how to game the algorithms running the show. While these (mostly) bad actors may have seen short term gains, the long term effect was devaluing the usefulness of the space.

I don’t know if Elon Musk can actually kill Twitter; lots of bad-for-users products survive in today’s marketplaces, like tobacco companies and the dirty energy industries. What I do know is that today’s Twitter has less content than a 24 hour broadcast sale of basement junk on a QVC-ish network.

I’m not quitting. I am asking readers who might use Elon Musk’s platform to consider a direct relationship with my writings at no charge. What this means is that you’ll get an email every time Words & Deeds has new content. 

You can always click delete if you’re too busy or the headline doesn’t speak to you, and the ‘unsubscribe’ link is always at the bottom of a post. I don’t sell or share your information.

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There’s lots of news today. Below are links to stories I think are worth sharing.

• Efforts to ban critical race theory have been put forth in all but one state – and many threaten schools with a loss of funds (11 cities in California have taken this step back to the Jim Crow days. )  Via The Conversation

• Tennessee Republicans claim they were 'obliged' to expel Democrats over peaceful protest Via the Daily Kos

• The Right Believes Blacks Must Be Broken Via Oliver Willis Explains

• Turmoil at Point Loma Nazarene as Dean Allegedly Fired for Siding with Gay Rights Via Times of San Diego

>>>>Ken Stone at Times of SD has a Doubleheader scoop day

• Duncan Hunter Blamed in Friendly Fire Incident That Killed 2 Marines in Fallujah Via Times of San Diego

• It is finally dawning on conservatives that abortion is dooming their party Via Daily Kos

• ‘We may be looking at the end of capitalism’: One of the world’s oldest and largest investment banks warns ‘Greedflation’ has gone too far Via Fortune Magazine

• How The Friedman Doctrine Leads To The Enshittification Of All Things Via Techdirt

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Thing on Twitter that I’m not allowed to share:

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You can follow me at:

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Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com