Taylor Lorenz announces Twitter isn’t ‘relevant’ anymore

This is probably the most predictable article published by the Washington Post today. If you’re familiar with Post tech writer Taylor Lorenz then you may already know that she has been sparring with Elon Musk for quite a while. When Musk took over Lorenz quickly penned a story claiming racist tweets had surfaced on the site:

An emboldened cast of anonymous trolls spewed racist slurs and Nazi memes onto Twitter in the hours after billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over the social network, raising fears that his pledge of unrestricted free speech could fuel a new wave of online hate…

Within hours, Musk’s portrayal of himself as a “free speech absolutist” and his fierce criticism of the company’s previous leaders as overly rigid and suppressive seemed to have encouraged a wide range of anonymous Twitter accounts to act as if his takeover meant the old rules against bigotry no longer applied.

The article made it clear that Musk himself hadn’t done anything yet. The argument Lorenz was making was that just the idea of a site devoted to free speech had unleashed the Nazi memes.

A month later Musk announced he would be restoring many banned accounts, Lorenz wrote an article titled “‘Opening the gates of hell’: Musk says he will revive banned accounts.” Her story highlighted Harvard Law trans activists Alejandra Caraballo:

“Apple and Google need to seriously start exploring booting Twitter off the app store,” said Alejandra Caraballo, clinical instructor at Harvard Law’s cyberlaw clinic. “What Musk is doing is existentially dangerous for various marginalized communities. It’s like opening the gates of hell in terms of the havoc it will cause. People who engaged in direct targeted harassment can come back and engage in doxing, targeted harassment, vicious bullying, calls for violence, celebration of violence. I can’t even begin to state how dangerous this will be.”

Also featured in the article was the president of Media Matters:

Angelo Carusone, chairman and president of Media Matters, a nonprofit advocacy group and media watchdog, said that Musk’s decision could mean bringing back networks of individuals that include the American Nazi Party and “a whole bunch of 8chan, 4chan, conspiracy theorists who engage in harassment and abuse.” 8chan and 4chan are two message boards known for their racist and antisemitic posts.

Reversing the suspensions would mean “turning Twitter into a one-stop shop for operationalizing doxing and harassment, and an engine of radicalization,” Carusone said. “It’s a red pill Pez dispenser.”

Not long after that, Musk briefly banned Lorenz’s account. That was clearly a mistake as it gave her the negative attention she was craving. She wrote about it on her Substack site and it is still the most popular article she has ever posted there.

You can also see her obsession with Musk on her TikTok account. Here she is last November asking if anyone was going to stay on the site.

@taylorlorenz

Thoughts?? Plans??? #twitter #elon #elonmusk #tech #technology #technews #siliconvalley #socialmedia

♬ Made You Look – Meghan Trainor

Here’s another one about “the crazy Elon Twitter madness.”

@taylorlorenz

What do you want to know??!!!! #tech #technology #elon #elonmusk #technews #technologynews #siliconvalley #creator #news #twitter #meta

♬ Remember – Acoustic / Sped Up (with David Guetta) – Becky Hill & Speed Radio & xxtristanxo

Three days later:

@taylorlorenz

What is this man on… #elon #elonmusk #twitter #tech #technology #technews #elonmuskmeme #news #journalism #media #journalist

♬ Anti-Hero – Taylor Swift

There’s lots more about her banning, etc. At the same time Lorenz was also visiting the TikTok “Transparency Center” which was transparently set up in LA by TikTok in an attempt to win over tech journalists and prevent the site from being banned.

@taylorlorenz

Inside TikTok’s new transparency center in L.A. #tiktok #tech #technology #journalist #creator #contentcreator #technews #tiktokban

♬ Epic Music(863502) – Draganov89

So with all of that as backstory, you’ll be shocked to learn that Lorenz has a new story up today titled “How Twitter lost its place as the global town square.”

A decade ago, Twitter rose to prominence by casting itself as a “global town square,” a space where anyone could reach millions of people overnight. The platform was pivotal in facilitating large social movements, such as the Arab Spring protests in the Middle East and the Black Lives Matter protests over police violence. In a recent email to staff, Twitter’s new chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, repeated this characterization, calling the site “a global town square for communication.”

But Twitter no longer serves this function. Thanks to a string of disastrous missteps over the past year by new owner Elon Musk — punctuated by the decision last week to cap the number of posts users can view — Twitter is hemorrhaging users and relevance. While Meta’s new Threads app is making an impressive debut, most social media experts say TikTok reigns as the new global town square and has held that role for quite a while.

“Twitter is definitely not anyone’s public square. Not anymore,” said Chris Messina, who on Thursday posted the hashtag #DeadTwitter on Threads. Twitter is “Elon Musk’s private playground where he’s about to charge everyone … for entry and access #DeadTwitter.”

I highlighted the key statement in the story. Apparently it’s just a fact that Twitter is no longer a popular service for sharing news. The evidence offered in support of this position is a handful of quotes and the fact that TikTok is really popular. It’s true that TikTok is really popular but the bulk of that popularity preceded Musk’s purchase of TikTok.

Lorenz of course doesn’t mention that. Nor does she mention the fact that TikTok is Chinese owned and, according to multiple reports, Chinese engineers can access any data they want on US users from ByteDance’s offices in China. What matters to Lorenz it seems is using her position at the Post to attack Elon Musk and Twitter because she doesn’t like his politics.

Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of Twitter before Musk bought it, but contrary to Lorenz’ claims, it does remain a fairly useful source of news.