The button Twitter actually needs
Twitter's about to get weird.
Billionaire industrialist-slash-space adventurer Elon Musk has purchased a big stake in the social media company and joined its board, and it seems assured that big changes (some possibly good, some possibly bad) are coming. Already, Musk has asked his Twitter followers if they want an edit button, a feature many typo-prone users have begged for over the years. More than 3 million people voted yes.
Coincidentally-maybe-not-so-coincidentally, Twitter on Tuesday announced that hey, yeah, it actually is working on an edit button:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Edit buttons might just be the beginning. Tech writers are speculating about all the possible ways the company might change with Musk throwing his weight around. Is Twitter about to become a major crypto platform? Will the service pull back on content moderation in the name of free speech? Like a lot of tech entrepreneurs, Musk is a "disruptor." With his ascendancy — and with company founder Jack Dorsey's decision to step down from the company late last year — it seems that anything is possible for Twitter right now.
So let's think big. My proposal: "Slow Twitter."
For many users — say, those of us who work in the media — Twitter is a useful tool for keeping up with events and distributing what we write to the wider world. But it can also be something of an addiction. Doomscrolling is part of the problem, but so is logorrhea: There is nothing that keeps us from sharing our every thought at every hour of the day, so we do. That's not always great. That makes it cost-free for right-wingers to hurl charges of "grooming" willy-nilly at their opponents, or for anyone to simply make a thoughtless and stupid joke that ends up haunting the writer forever.
Slow Twitter would give users the option of limiting themselves to three or four tweets per day, max. Not everybody would use it. But for those who did, such a tool would help them be a little more considerate about what they put out into the world.
Twitter is unlikely to ever offer that kind of option because "engagement" is so meaningful to the company's business model: It needs and feeds our addiction. And Musk seems more interested in loosening the reins on what's allowed on Twitter than in constructing boundaries for his new sandbox.
But how great would it be for our society and democracy if there was a little scarcity built into the system — if we had to ration our thoughts a little and share only the ones we thought were really worth sharing? It would be like an edit button we could use before we tweeted! Musk is bringing some big changes to Twitter. Might as well make some of them useful.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Joel Mathis is a freelance writer who has spent nine years as a syndicated columnist, co-writing the RedBlueAmerica column as the liberal half of a point-counterpoint duo. His work also regularly appears in National Geographic, The Kansas City Star and Heatmap News. His awards include best online commentary at the Online News Association and (twice) at the City and Regional Magazine Association.
-
Sydney mall attacker may have targeted women
Speed Read Police commissioner says gender of victims is 'area of interest' to investigators
By Julia O'Driscoll, The Week UK Published
-
Kerala: one Indian state, four exhilarating ways
The Week Recommends The southwestern region pretty much has it all, from beachfront, to port metropolis, to verdant mountainside
By Scott Hocker, The Week US Published
-
Is a high-yield savings account worth having?
The Explainer They can pay up to 10 times more than a standard savings account
By Becca Stanek, The Week US Published
-
How social media is limiting political content
The Explainer Critics say Meta's 'extraordinary move' to have less politics in users' feeds could be 'actively muzzling civic action'
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Is Google's new AI bot 'woke'?
Talking Points Gemini produced images of female popes and Black Vikings. Now the company has stepped back.
By Joel Mathis, The Week US Published
-
Elon Musk's most controversial moments
The Explainer The business mogul has a long history in the hot seat
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
2023: the year of the AI boom
the explainer This year, generative artificial intelligence bypassed the metaverse and became the next big thing in tech
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
Elon Musk's 'frivolous' but precedent-setting free speech fight with Media Matters
Talking Point The lawsuit is just the latest in Musk's ongoing tension with social media watchdogs
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
Inside Sam Altman's 'extraordinary firing' from OpenAI
The Explainer AI superstar joins Microsoft after 'philosophical disagreement' with his old board that stunned tech world
By The Week UK Published
-
How Grok, Elon Musk's 'rebellious' AI bot, differs from the others
The Explainer Musk developed the bot as a competitor to ChatGPT
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Twitter's year of Elon Musk: what happens next?
Why Everyone's Talking About 'Your platform is dying', says one commentator, but new CEO is aiming for profitability next year
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published