Why Elon Musk Can’t Fix Twitter

He is a flawed human like the rest of us, and the problems of social media are not technological problems but profoundly human

Illustration by R Fresson

I have to admit that I’m growing tired of the ‘dopamine hit’ critique of social media (disseminated in the documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’), which gives the impression the human beings are merely sheep being manipulated by big tech like pavlovian dogs; and I’m growing even more tired of the ‘social media is bad because it incentivizes people to behave in stupid ways’ critique (apparently this can still sell a million books); and then (don’t think I forgot it!) there’s the ‘social media has a free speech problem’ critique, which is or should be as obvious as the irrelevance of Johnny Depp’s political opinions to anyone who reads this newsletter.

So, sure to all of that — but it’s unclear to me what new insights any of these critiques really offer.

What are they saying that we don’t already know? And more importantly, what do we do about those problems?

I saw a political pundit say — on national television — today, that it’s concerning that twitter (and big tech in general, he implied) seems to be owned by an oligarchy — but that he’s glad that the oligarch he likes best now owns it, because he’s the free…