The philosophical experiment formerly known as Twitter

Another look at a (muddled) natural philosophical experiment

Photo by Nicolas Thomas on Unsplash

Over the past 18 months, I have been following Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter for insights into how philosophical principles play out in the real world. What is noteworthy is that Musk motivated his takeover, from the start, by appeals to a classically liberal conception of free speech. That is, the best way for truth to emerge is to allow the unfettered exchange of ideas, however distasteful we might find some of them. As noted previously, this approach to free speech only makes sense if we adopt a genuine epistemic humility. For, if we are confident we know what the truth is, then we don’t need the help of free speech to ensure it emerges.

What makes this worth following is it has created greater differences in the epistemic assumptions underpinning the ways different social media platforms manage and moderate content. This has lead to a kind of natural philosophical experiment - we can watch how the different platforms go and see something of the impact of these different assumptions. In my post setting this out last year, I went so far as to make some predictions, which I will revisit below.

A philosophical cage fight

First though, there has been one major development this year that has, contrary to my previous analysis, naturally improved the set up of this philosophical experiment. In July this year, Mark Zuckerberg launched a direct competitor to Twitter called Threads. As it was built on the same log-in system as Instagram, Threads attracted 100 million users in less than a week - giving it the scale and user base to genuinely rival Twitter.

Threads, as can be seen by reading through its official announcement document, starts with different ambitions and philosophical principles than Twitter under Musk. The Threads announcement stated that it was focused on "positive, productive conversations" and asserted that "we're taking safety seriously", including that "we'll enforce Instagram's Community Guidelines on content and interactions." This clearly isn’t focused on the free and vigorous contest of ideas espoused by classical liberalism.

The contrast comes through in public statements made by Musk and Zuckerberg. For Musk, "it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence." Zuckerberg’s motivation, on the other hand, is that "there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it." One obvious contrast is that Zuckerberg listens to his media and HR advisors, while Musk clearly doesn't.

A deeper contrast becomes clear when you imagine the settings for an event conducted under these principles. If you want to set up a productive conversation, especially a public one, you would typically invite selected people, have it in a controlled environment and have clear ground rules. Events like conferences, or roundtables, or university tutorials, tend to be good examples. There might be vigorous disagreement but it is within agreed parameters.

A debate over a wide range of beliefs, on the other hand, suggests something much more unstructured - where anyone can take part and many will. It is less the university tutorial and more like what happens at the pub afterwards, where everything is noisier, the debates are more robust and people are less inhibited about saying what they think. This is perhaps implicit in the image Musk used as, historically, the public town square was also the market square. It was a space often dominated by the noise and chaos of people trying to buy and sell a bit of everything.

If we run with this analogy, it means that Zuckerberg is trying to construct a virtual university tutorial environment for 1 billion+ people, whereas Musk is more interested in a giant pub or market. So far, however much people might say they want something different, most people seem to be recreating their university days online: they are choosing the pub over the tutorial room. Threads usage is widely reported to be down 80% since the first week.

I should note that this conclusion is only provisional as we can’t yet make fully fair comparison. Threads falls short on a range of features - for example, search is only being introduced at the moment. On the other hand, the comparison is also being confounded by the range of changes that Musk is making that many are unhappy with. These include rebranding as X, emphasising subscriptions, prioritising images over text and trying to position X as a future 'everything app' - which includes a wide range of services, including shopping and payments. Also, as noted previously, Musk is not consistent in his support of the free speech principles he espoused.

Revisiting my predictions

When I noted that Musk was inadvertently setting up a philosophical experiment across different social media platforms, I made four predictions about what I thought would happen. With the advent of Threads and the changes we have seen so far, it is worth checking in to each of them to see how far wrong I was.

Prediction 1:

Twitter will remain a MOBA,¹ but only because the dynamics that drive this have always existed in human social behaviour. Politics, tribal warfare and schoolyard gangs are only the more visible forms of this behaviour. Moving online doesn’t change any of this.

This was a fairly safe prediction and it has held up. If anything, the online battles on X / Twitter have got more vicious and less bearable - or at least that is the common experience. Musk’s rationale for taking over was to loosen moderation on Twitter and allow a greater range of beliefs and views to be expressed. This, in itself, was likely to mean many people would feel more uncomfortable as most people find if difficult when they are exposed to views or arguments they disagree with.

However, the loosening of content moderation on X / Twitter seems to have largely been achieved by reducing all moderation - which means that abusive and toxic comments are now more prevalent. An alternate approach, which various people argued for, was to shift the focus onto decorum moderation - allow people to say what they want so long as they are civil about it. All successful pubs and bars have standards of behaviour that are enforced, so there is no reason why X / Twitter would be any different.

Interestingly, with its emphasis on safety, Threads seems to have been deliberately set up so it wouldn’t turn into a MOBA. However, judging by the decline in its usage, this likely also drained the life out of interactions and meant using the platform isn’t as engaging.

Prediction 2:

A new moderation approach at Twitter will shift the social power dynamics. Content moderation tends to privilege those who already have a powerful voice or institutional clout. Decorum moderation is likely to mean a wider range of people gain social power on Twitter, but this power is likely to be less permanent.

While the details of this prediction haven’t held up - X clearly hasn’t focused on decorum moderation - the overall point has. There has been a shift in social power online, which can most readily be seen in those who are complaining loudest.

Some readers may not be aware, but there is a notable group of people who remain highly positive about Musk’s leadership. A useful proxy are the group of people who signed the Westminster Declaration this year, calling for the reduction of censorship from all governments. Judging by their credentials, it is an impressive list of people and this is a development worth watching. This initiative grew out of revelations about what was going on at Twitter, and other social media platforms, before Musk took over.

On the other hand, those upset about the changes to Twitter tend to be clustered in large corporations, government, academia, traditional media and large NGOs. People in organisations with social capital and clout tend to feel like they are losing out. Whether or not you think this form of social equalisation is good, it is a sign that the social dynamics have shifted.

Prediction 3:

If we think about the range of positions on any particular issue, my hypothesis is that an approach based on epistemic humility at Twitter will mean that the extremes isolate into their own bubbles more completely, but those in the broad middle will moderate as they are exposed to a wider range of good faith views.

I have not yet seen any good network analysis to test whether this prediction is true or not, but my read is that it hasn’t played out as I predicted.² The different bubbles of opinion seem to be even more insular than they were, as I expected, but I don’t see clear signs of a broad middle that is moderating. My prediction missed the mark (so far) partially as I underestimated the size of the different teams across any issue on X / Twitter. Most engaged people are already on one team or another, it is just a question of how committed they are.

Part of this seems endemic to attention dynamics online, or at least the incentive structures currently endemic to X / Twitter. By contrast, Threads seems to have been set up to facilitate good faith engagement on topics, but that doesn’t seem (yet) to be successful.

Another dynamic at play is that I suspect the broad middle across the whole of society are increasingly disengaging from platforms like X / Twitter - so what is happening online is increasingly disconnected from day-to-day life.

Prediction 4:

Assuming something like this holds, then Twitter will be more effective at uncovering truth than other platforms for those motivated to look for it and test their thinking. However, as has always been the case, this may be uncomfortable as the truth is often not what we want it to be.

This was a slightly grandiose and difficult to measure prediction, as may be apt for a philosopher. At the moment, it is too soon to make a clear judgement - particularly given all the other noise. Of particular note is that many of the changes Musk is making, or wants to make, are likely to work against this. For example, his move to make it more of a visual platform (titles of linked articles have been removed in favour of pictures) and his ambitions to build in payment processing will detract from its usefulness for investigations and truth-seeking.

1. That is, a computer game format called a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. I borrowed this characterisation of Twitter from Jon Askonas: https://unherd.com/thepost/elon-musk-doesnt-understand-what-hes-bought/

2. In my partial defence, X / Twitter hasn’t really implemented a moderation approach that is genuinely based on epistemic humility. But I did get some of the dynamics wrong.