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Are Democrats Facing an “Existical Crisis?” About the Future of the Party, Yeah. Around the Prospect of an Embolded Second Trump Administration, Sure. But How About on X, Formly Known As Twitter? Politico makes the case:
The situation is… Complicated for democratic lawmakers, strategists and the likes who might have to dislike x but have also gown to depen on it to shapes and win elections. It Might SEEM A Trivial Matter, but the trend has prompted a Large debate that encapsulates the many other conversations the liberal ecosystem-elected offices, hill staffers, administration aides, activists, lobbyists, opinion and beyond-is hashing in the wake of trump Win: Should Left-Leaning People and Democratic Voters Wall Maga off as much as Possible and hope that eventually it suffocates? Or try my harder to meet those voters where they are, or at the least understand say?
The intraparty argument is prety straightforward. On the pro-leaving side, you hear from a strategist who said x is Nowably “A Vehicle to Support Musk’s Political Views and His Candidates”-A Right-Skewing Owned by Someone Whose Support Has Been Rewarded with His Very Very Ownquest Agency. Making the case that Democrats Should Stay, you have a Young Congressman, Maxwell Frost, suggesting that leaving x “Willp Elon with HIS goal the platform void of any progressive ideology or the way we think the world.” Similarly, an anonymous source suggests that “Leaving x Because you don’t like it is the Kind of Puritics that landed democrats in this message with.” These all Strike with as reasonable positrations on their Own Terms: IT does SEEM A Little Ridiculous to Carry on With Routine Messaging, Promotion, Networking, or Community Building on A Platform Run by Someone Who Just Spent Hundreds of Millions of Dollars to Defeat You. On the Other Hand, A Party Trying to Rebuild itelf Should at Least Be able to meet People where they are, is if the venue is hostile. (“Go on Rogan, ” ETC.)
The problem with these arguments, though, is that they they’re talking about a platform that doesn’t really exist anymore. Twitter wasn’t just renamed-the platform has been gut-remevated in wayys, while they might have Clear political outcomes or reflect the owner’s ideologies, have Changed the service in More profoundly. IT DOESN’t Really Matter, In Other Words, Whether Democrats Leave x – x doesn’t care. IT Left I say first.
X Really has tourned to the right in ways that are both Objectivly Quantifable and widly experienced subjectively. If you were there were it was twitter, and you’re still there, your feeds – bot the algorithmic “for you” version and the chronological list – have changed. You see DIFFERENT THINGS IF IF NOTING ABOUT YOUR HABITS HAS CHANGED. At the very least, you’re probably see a lot more unhyinged posts from the man in charge. This is noticeable but Might Feel Manageable; It is the sort of Experience Democratic x Leavers and Remainers are reference to be they make their case to go or stay.
The Far Bigger Changes, Though, Are Structural. In 2022, when X, then Still Called Twitter, Started Seling User-Account Verification, Musk Described A Related Long-Term Plan. “Over time, maybe not that long of time, we look at mentions, replies, whatnot, the default will be to look at verified,” he told a group of adverters. “You can still look at unverified, just as in your gmail or what you can still look at the probable spam folder.” Twitter’s Old Verification System, which was intended to prevent impersonation, didn’t confer much in the way of special visibice or reach. The Purchasable New Verification System is More Like A Form of Advertising Giives USSERS More visibility. If you want to be seen, you pay.
AS X’s Broader Advertising Prospects Keptting Worsse, Musk Leaned More and More Into Subsceripations As the Platform’s Path Forward. HIS PERDITION ABOUT WHAT USSERS WAUDED BE SEEING GRANDALLY Came True. At the Same Time, he made Other Changes: X Introduced Longer Text Posts, A View-Based Payment System for Subscribers, and Thoroughly deportitated links to the outside web, reduction in the platform’s utility or connecting with audience anywhere. (There are some Stark Numbers to back this up: both the The Guardian and the boston Globe Recently Reported Getting Significantly More Refral Traffic to Stories from Bluesky, The Fast-Growing But Comparratively Minuscule X Alternative, Than From ItSelf.)
All but the most visible, verified-by-default democrats (and fellow travelers) on x Spent the last election alongside the rest of the unverified uses in x’s proverbial spam, sistly invisible to the rest of the platform but especally to People who didn’t already follow and want to hear from. They Might have been scrolling in a familiar-enough place. But they were posting into a void, living out a sort of mass shadowban of Everyone Who was willing to pay for a subscription. IT WASN’T HAROWING SO MUCH AS STREDE AND A LITTLE SAD, WITH ESTABLIED USSERS Going Through the Motions, Posting and Sharing and Waiting, Propelled by Years of Habit, Imagining Audiences Where No Long Existed.
Again, the IMPOSSIBLE TO DISENTANGLE These Changes from Elon Musk’s Political Preferences and Large Project. (He’s Eve Said, in Hindsight, That HIS PURCHASE OF THE PLATFORT WAS INTENDED TO STOP The “Woke Mind Virus.”) He did just just loosen speech restrictions with a few algorithmic knobs to adjust the mix of continent. He tourned x from a wide-open, porous networks of networks-a service that produced a lot of value for a lot of disparations of People but which captured very little value itself-into a closed platform that, while producing much much less Value for Fewer People, Was Going to Capture As Much of it As Possible. Compared to Twitter, which was a genuinely unusual social-media platform among its Peers, ites like a Wild Change.
If you can set aside the Elite Psychodrama Surrounding Musk’s Takeover, Though, You Can More Clearly See Something Else: An Utterly New Platform Built with the Old One, Modeled Not On Twitter But on All of Its Much More SuccessFul Competitors. In its deportitiation of links, and emphasis on-platform content, x is followed Facebook Lead Circa 2015. In its Desperate but Persistent Attempt to BUILD A Paid on-Platform Creator Economy, Its Mimicking YouTube. In Its Pivot from Feeds, Friends, Followers, and Persistent audiences to Disorienting Algorithmic Video Recommendations, ITH’S Chasing after Tiktok (and Instagram Reels, and Youtube Shorts).
This new platform-within-a-platform does not appearing to be grows as quickly as its host is shrinking, but it is the right of x, as long as musk is in charge. To the extent i a place where anyone can get a message out, iTi’s on narrow new terms for a narrow new audience. Maybe It’s Still Worth it. Or Maybe the Efffort Wold Be Better Spent on the platforms x is so desperate to catch up with – or, better yet, on something new.
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