Twitter Me This: Trump Was Not the Problem

It’s the Virtual Public Square that Has Failed

So Twitter banned Trump from its platform.

Do we all feel safer that out of millions of repugnant, ignorantly defiant, intellectually un-curious, twitter twits, there is now one less among them? That the account of a man with less followers than Justin Bieber is no more?

Do we all feel better that after more than 56,000 ego bloated, demon spawned tweets since 2009, that Jack Dorsey — (Jack Dorsey!?) — made the call to mask the COVID denier in chief? That we’ve entrusted a guy that sometimes looks like a descendant of the Duck Dynasty to be our arbiter of truth?

An enraged right says it’s time to break up big tech.

But why should Twitter be any more responsible for what people say than the ubiquitous theater owner if someone falsely yells fire? If people get trampled in the hypothetical flee for the exits, it’s the shouter, not the venue that should be held responsible. And the courts — not the courts of public opinion — that should mete out the punishment.

But how do you deal with a shitstorm of people yelling fire millions of times a day in millions of crowded theaters? Our country has a lot of lawyers, but still.

And who determines what qualifies as fire?

There’s fire, and then there’s stupid.

One is criminal.

The other, America.

I, for one, would love to see the little blue bird take a load of buckshot like that lawyer Dick Cheney shot. The “public square” for ideas was supposed to be a quaint gathering spot where the reach of lies, bile, and hate was limited to how far the speaker’s voice could carry — not the entire planet. And the speaker was not supposed to hide behind an avatar.

But since Twitter’s here to stay, we need to somehow remind people that when they log into social media, what they are about to consume is probably toxic. And what they are about to tweet might be better left untweeted.

So right off, no more nom de plumes. Require identity verification and usage. If you’re going to put something out in the public square, you should be accountable for what you say.

Perhaps we need a cigarette-like warning.

Caution: The Surgeon General has determined that social media can make you stupid.

How about every 15 minutes you are automatically logged out, must manually re-enter your password, navigate a Captcha picture puzzle, and then click through the Surgeon General’s warning just to re-tweet that post from your friend’s, uncle’s, pet’s account that left-wing ferrets infiltrated Dominion voting machines.

Funny?

Perhaps.

But don’t miss the point.

To tame social media, we can’t, and shouldn’t, selectively ban free speech.

But we can slow it down.

Force some self-reflection.

Require accountability.

And take a few steps back toward the public square of yore.