Elon Musk should take over Twitter, shut it down and fire the social media giant into space

Famous spaceman Elon Musk has been flittering around Twitter, scaring the bitcoins out of numerous who question what a billionaire oddball and self-declared “absolutely free speech absolutist” may do to a social media system previously overrun by racists, misogynists, Nazi wannabes and bigots of all stripes.

1st, Musk bought a 9% stake in the company. Then it appeared he would be a part of Twitter’s board. Late Sunday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal declared the Tesla founder would not be becoming a member of the board, which could – and I tension “could,” as Musk and certainty don’t blend – indicate he desires to get the firm outright, an selection presented his huge wealth.

As a Twitter consumer and, evidently, a full hypocrite, I have a ask for for Mr. Musk: Be sure to acquire Twitter, set it on 1 of your rockets and hearth it into the solar.

Twitter is a ‘hive of scum and villainy’

Most frequent Twitter customers identify the internet site as the electronic equal of Mos Eisley, the spaceport in “Star Wars” that prompted Obi-Wan Kenobi to say: “You will hardly ever come across a extra wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

It’s that rarest of areas wherever you can publish the words and phrases “Aren’t puppies lovable?” and have an individual answer, “No, you pedophile fool, I hope you die!!! #QAnon.”

A lot more from columnist Rex Huppke:

►Marjorie Taylor Greene and other people throw ‘pedophile’ all around with ease. Stop it.

►DeSantis is proper. Many thanks to ‘Woke’ Disney, my son won’t have on his Dalmatian-fur coat.

I joined Twitter in February 2009 and steadily designed a next that now stands at a minimal much more than 90,000 buyers. I mail tweets just about reflexively and have no intention of halting. I have met and befriended some superb and hilarious folks by way of Twitter. And I am nonetheless begging Musk to get the social media organization, give all its personnel pleasant work opportunities at Tesla, then get Twitter’s servers and algorithms and whatnot and blast them out into the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

We have to have a person to do this.

Twitter is like a huge bowl of ice cream. I know I should not try to eat it. I know it is bad for me and ingesting it will give me a fleeting hurry adopted by waves of regret. But if it’s in front of me, spoon or not, it’s heading down the hatch.

Story carries on

Twitter’s lousy significantly outweighs the great

For all the great that can appear from connectedness and acquiring the prospect to hear other voices and perspectives, you can find very little evidence the great on Twitter even comes shut to outweighing the negative. Simply because the poor is truly, frightfully, horribly lousy. We’re speaking “Hitler was right” undesirable. Death threat poor. The present-day craze of each correct-wing knucklehead with a Twitter account calling any person who supports LGBTQ rights “a groomer” poor.

A ‘gay’ pet dog acquired dumped at a shelter. I would like that have been the most troubling LGBTQ information.

A 2020 post in the BBC’s Science Concentrate journal that concentrated on Twitter’s capacity to make individuals offended read: “The difficulties with non-prevent accessibility to social media and news stores is that our boundaries, identities and values can be assaulted whenever we glance at our telephones, turning all of us into tinder packing containers.”

The posting quoted psychotherapist Aaron Balick indicating men and women are “chronically wound up” and noting the uselessness of hollering back again and forth at every other online: “To just shout out into the streets, ‘I hate it when men and women poke me,’ triggering other folks to say, ‘I detest it when they poke me too!’ is not notably successful. It does not go anywhere, it just spreads.”

‘Heightened risk of on the internet abuse’

Investigation on Twitter abuse by Amnesty International Usa discovered that “40 per cent of ladies who use the system a lot more than once a working day report suffering from abuse.”

Michael Kleinman, the group’s director of technological innovation and human legal rights, claimed in a December assertion: “Despite our recurring calls to improve their platform, Twitter is nonetheless falling short on its guarantees to shield end users at heightened hazard of on-line abuse. For a enterprise whose mission is to ‘give all people the power to generate and share tips promptly with out boundaries,’ it’s turn out to be abundantly apparent that women and/or marginalized teams disproportionately confront threats to their on the web basic safety.”

I am the final of the Obama Republicans. But I nonetheless have hope for lasting adjust.

This begs the issue: Why are individuals of us who use Twitter executing this to ourselves?

My solution, regrettably, is: I never know! I maintain likely back, and I think I could possibly have a dilemma!

Even though Twitter does assist me remain educated on up-to-the-second breaking information and has specified me a system to share jokes and other assorted nonsense, I’d guess the time devoted to tweeting would’ve been sufficient to compose a pair publications, study how to mediate and possibly shell out a number of silent moments each and every day not getting told I’m “a radical leftist (expletive) who should really be (expletive) in the (expletive) for my evil (expletive) (expletive) (expletive).”

Musk as well juvenile to do the correct detail

But you can wager as shortly as this column publishes, I’ll tweet the backlink out. And then I’ll tweet a lot more things that exact day. Simply because seemingly I’m a shameless hypocrite with zero self handle. Which, tragically, puts me in superior firm.

Humanitarian support: My father and I went to Poland and Ukraine to aid refugees, together with teenagers just like me

We Twitter addicts now obtain ourselves at the mercy of a wealthy dude who could purchase the organization and assert his absolutely free-speech absolutism in a way that normally takes one thing currently awful and would make it measurably even worse.

Early Thursday, presumably soon after looking through this column, Musk presented to obtain Twitter outright for $54.20 a share, calling it his “best and closing supply.” He wrote that if his non-binding provide to consider the organization private is not approved, “I would will need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.”

That sounds less like a critical provide and extra like a publicity stunt. Very last Oct, Musk sent this tweet: “Am wondering of setting up new university: Texas Institute of Engineering & Science.”

That’s a developed gentleman making a sexist, center-faculty-level acronym joke, individuals.

Appears to be like like we are not leaving Mos Eisley anytime shortly.

Stick to United states Currently columnist Rex Huppke on Twitter @RexHuppke and Facebook: fb.com/RexIsAJerk/.

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This report initially appeared on Usa Currently: Elon Musk won’t sign up for Twitter board, but he could buy the whole organization