Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
From the moment Twitter was founded, no one knew what it was supposed to be exactly, which was kind of great. Some people would look at it and say, "This is the future of communications." Others would look at it and say, "This is the public square." Sometimes, you know, it'd just be a bunch of people shooting the shit, and like a random semi-famous person would chime in. Twitter didn't actually state what they were, and so they could be many things to many different people.
It felt like you never knew what was going to happen. Eventually, it became not so great. We all imagined that there was going to be a public square. What we didn't foresee was that everybody having a voice might produce a global, voracious mob. And there was only one place that that was happening. It was Twitter. Twitter.
I never felt more uncomfortable, sad, hurt than when I had thousands of people bullying me through an app. And the people in charge of Twitter, they weren't sure what to do about any of this or whether they were really in charge. All at once, we're dealing with dehumanization.
deep fakes and manipulated media. We're dealing with COVID-19 misinformation, and we're dealing with election misinformation with an untested alpha version of a product that we didn't really have the ability to roll out at scale. I thought to myself, no one should have this job. Like, this job should not exist. There is so much power that is in my hands that is
happening behind closed door that has no checks and balances. But one man thought he knew what Twitter ought to be because he spent way, way too much time on Twitter. He particularly became addicted late at night to Twitter and saying pretty bad things on it. At one point, one of his friends, when they were traveling, said, let me take your phone. I'm going to put it in the hotel room safe so you can't get it. But at 3 a.m., he called hotel security and made them open the safe. ♪
A year ago, in what was essentially the world's most expensive impulse purchase, Elon Musk bought. That made him Twitter's most important user. But he's certainly not the only one to fall for its spell. It's a spell that promises attention, connection, and power. I'm Peter Kafka, and I'm hosting Land of the Giants: The Twitter Fantasy. It's from Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
To learn how Twitter got started and where it's going next, we've talked to the people who dreamed up Twitter, the people who ran it as things got more complicated, and the people who made it what it is today, for better and for worse. This season is sponsored by Mint Mobile. Follow Land of the Giants wherever you listen and get our first episode on Wednesday, October 25th.