Jennifer Angelo is funny, snarky, and quick-witted. She rebuts nonsense. She defends the truth.
She posts on Twitter.
Now that Twitter is on the ropes, I have discovered it. I want this blog to be considered thoughtful and fair-minded, so I have never paid much attention to Twitter. Twitter is blunt advocacy.
Jennifer Angelo is married to an occasional guest post writer and friend from my youth, Jack Mullen, so when I joined Twitter I clicked to "follow" her. That leads to my getting fed other posts chosen for me by what Twitter knows I read. That specialized feed makes Twitter addictive and dangerous.
Her Twitter description is: "Democrat, book reader, lawyer, animal rescue, married. Separation of church and state, guns, reproductive freedom." She writes that Twitter is in trouble. She isn't ready to say goodbye to it.
Twitter has been going through some things. Since Elon Musk took over, a big percentage of employees has left or been fired, Musk has shared plans for the site and then changed them almost daily, and no one (except possibly Musk) thinks he has put the company on the road to profitability. He issued an ultimatum a few days ago telling every employee to either agree to a "hardcore" 18-hour-a-day work schedule or quit. A large number did the latter, including the guy in charge of employee badges. People at an office down the coast couldn’t get out of the parking garage because their badges wouldn’t open the gate. Musk asked the employee to return.
In light of all this, Twitter users have developed a sinking ship mentality, and I’ve been surprised by my feelings about a future without Twitter. I’ve been active on the site since 2015 and often ashamed for spending so much time there. I’ve often thought I’d be better off if it just went away. But last night I realized how much I’ve come to depend on the site as an outlet for my frustration about politics, a place to share jokes and opinions and, most surprisingly, a source of friendship and inspiration.
Twitter lets me talk back to people. I made my career as a lawyer and enjoyed debating. My early work was fighting consumer fraud, and I have abiding contempt for those who run scams of any kind. All that transfers nicely to setting the record straight on Twitter, where one finds an alarming amount of unchecked misinformation, both pre- and post- Musk. Whether anyone sees my tweets or not, it gives me satisfaction to debunk false claims (no, the IRS isn’t hiring 87,000 auditors), and to tell Trump supporters I see them for the brainwashed conspiracy theorists and MAGA cult members that they are.
It's also fun talking back to public officials who have abandoned the concept of truth (so much better than shouting at the TV). All politicians lie, but Republicans are shameless. Happily, Twitter gives me the chance to counter their lies directly (no, Democrats haven’t defunded the police) or, if short on time, just to tell them they’re crackpots and unworthy of their positions. My most-used word on Twitter? Nonsense. My most replied-to liar? Jim Jordan, who runs the GOP Judiciary Committee account (no, Jim, Trump isn't an innocent victim of Merrick Garland's political overreach).
If Twitter went away I would miss the witty people. “Last tweets” this past week had me smiling. “If this is my last tweet, I just gotta say one thing – I will never, ever buy a Tesla.” “If this is our last tweet, just remember: GenZ is the wrong generation to piss off.” “In case this is my last tweet, I just want to confirm that men cause 100% of unwanted pregnancies.”
There were others that got me thinking about Twitter as a place that adds meaning to people’s lives: “Might be my last tweet. I’ll miss the good sides of Twitter that are often overlooked – the humor, the links to epiphanous writing I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, and the range of smart people from across the planet.” “If Twitter goes down, I would want my last tweet to be…Thank you.” Many people share news of their illnesses and losses on Twitter, and the warmth and empathy of the people who respond has brought tears to my eyes. Seeing people be vulnerable enough to share personal information with the world and get only compassion from strangers reassures me that maybe we’re going to be all right.
So, maybe Twitter will carry on, maybe not. I hope it survives. I need the laughs, the connections and the opportunity to say my piece.
[Note: To get daily home delivery of this blog go to https://petersage.substack.com Subscribe. The blog is free and always will be.]
14 comments:
Twitter is a useful idea, poorly implemented. It sits at the intersection of free speech and commerce, with no stoplights or traffic control.
I think the fundamental discussion regarding social media begins with fact checking. For instance, "all politicians lie". Not a fact, but an opinion conveniently held to support a particular worldview, one I'd suggest neglects actual reality.
Another opinion, mine, is that social media is unreliable as a source of information. "I read it on the internet" is a punchline. The various platforms have decided that rigorous content moderation isn't friendly to the business model, much the same way that environmental destruction is inconvenient to corporate profits.
If you remove the profit motive from Twitter, something Musk is flailing away at trying to maximize, and the other platforms and implement journalistic standards for veracity we might begin to see some daylight with respect to turning down the volume of an ear splitting cacophony, much of it drowning out actual truth.
Yoel Roth, the rabidly anti-Trump former Twitter employee who briefly served as the site’s top censor, has penned an article for the New York Times explaining how a coalition of regulators and corporate interests can prevent Elon Musk from fully restoring free speech on the platform.
In the article, Roth, who briefly led Twitter’s notorious “Trust & Safety” department — responsible for the platform’s sitewide censorship policies — outlined the establishment’s playbook for restraining any platform that attempts to move towards free speech on its own.
=====================================================================
It appears that elitist Jennifer Angelo is no different than Yoel Roth, who is happy with Twitter as long as it censors conservatives. She enjoys debating people as long as they can't respond back to her.
Social media is a mixed blessing. It’s like an amplifier people use to broadcast their beliefs, and right now the haters and liars are shouting the loudest. The damage caused by the spread of Trump’s election lies and disinformation about vaccines is incalculable, and those are only two examples.
No doubt social media is here to stay, but people need to learn how to tell fact from fiction. Children should be taught in school from the earliest possible age the difference between a credible source and bullshit. For example, when seeking information on the pandemic or vaccines, go to something like the Mayo Clinic website rather than Twitter or Facebook. For information on climate change, NOAA is a better reference than Trump. The problem is that Republicans would probably consider that “brainwashing our children” because in their view, reality has a liberal bias.
I never understood the appeal of shouting “liar!” into the void. “Whether anyone sees my tweets or not…”. I call B.S. It’s all about ego: I am right and you are wrong. The next “social” invention will be a holodeck, where you can program the crowd’s approving nods and murmurs to your ranting.
Ironically, the very examples Ms. Angelo lists as if factually indisputable are themselves proof of the dangers of turning over fact-checking to partisan advocates. At the very least, "needs context" is the appropriate response.
"No, Democrats haven't defunded the police", she announces, as if "duh" is the only proper reply.
Not for want of trying, anyway, and with some considerable success in cities including Portland and Minneapolis, until pesky reality on the street helped blunt the movement and turn it into a political liability of Democrats. Also, "defunded" in many cities meant, and still means, the substantial reallocation of some police budget funds away from conventional law enforcement functions into new social outreach and intervention programs.
"No, Jim [Jordan], Trump isn't an innocent victim of Merrick Garland's political overreach".
Agreed on "innocent". That leaves Trump as arguably the victim of Merrick Garland's political overreach. That's a legal opinion and a political argument, not a pat answer either way. James Comey famously declared HRC culpable under the relevant statutes for the classified docs on her unsecured private home server, but also that proper prosecutorial discretion and the wider intent of the statute did not support formal prosecution. Compare/contrast to Garland's conduct, especially as the FBI/DOJ has recently had to concede that personal vanity over possession appears to have been Trump's motive as opposed to traitorousness or even money-grubbing.
Simple does not mean simplistic.
OK, we can agree Trump isn't an "innocent" victim. If we can also accept that Attorneys General oversee the DOJ which enforces federal laws, and that stealing top secret federal documents is against the law, then we could further reduce the sentence to, "No, Jim, Trump isn't a victim of political overreach."
The investigation is to discern not if, but to what extent the documents have been compromised. As such, motive is irrelevant. At the least the behavior is reckless, and the extension of a pattern that would deem prosecutorial discretion moot, whataboutism notwithstanding.
In this connection, raising “whataboutism” is itself the actual whataboutism, as in merits-avoidance and convenient disdain of comparison contrast.
Comey noted in his infamous HRC summary that her server was completely vulnerable to foreign hackers and had likely already been breached.
No such claim as yet of likely breach from Mar a Lago. Meanwhile, the initial lurid claims of “nuclear secrets” for sale have been quietly abandoned.
In legal terms, as in the level of culpability, Comey expressly rejected the need for prosecution absent intent to do ill. That rules out “reckless” behavior.
I appreciate the fact checking of my fact checking and would note that tweets have a character limit and I was just providing an couple of examples, not a full explanation of each position. I do check sources before spouting off and though obviously partisan, I try to be factual. Here’s a link to some solid evidence that Democrats as a group (with individual exceptions) don’t want to defund the police. https://www.americanprogressaction.org/article/defund-police-myth/ If you look at Republicans’ tweets during the recent campaign, they paint with a very broad brush, claiming all Democrats want to defund the police. I feel comfortable asserting that is false. When every Republican votes against a Democratic bill providing hundreds of millions to police departments, it takes some chutzpah to pretend Democrats are the problem.
As for the question of Merrick Garland’s political bias: Anyone who researches Garland’s life and career should have confidence in his integrity. He was an esteemed judge and ultimately the Chief Judge on the DC Circuit. He was confirmed by bipartisan majority (the 23 Republicans voting against him objected to adding an extra judge, not to Garland himself). Almost his entire career has been in public service. He never lost a case as a federal prosecutor. He appointed a Special Prosecutor last week to remove the appearance of a conflict of interest - since Biden appointed him and could be Trump’s opponent in 2024, he wanted to take himself out of the case. Democrats in general find Garland too timid, not too aggressive. So arguing with Jim Jordan about his knee jerk character assassination of Garland seems to me a pretty good hill to die on. And, as others have noted, Trump has done things so obviously illegal that arguing for his innocence doesn’t pass the straight face test. Cheers.
Thank you, Jennifer, for the references, but I’m afraid Republicans prefer their own “alternative facts,” which is why we need to focus on teaching the children critical thinking skills. Perhaps they'll be capable of becoming an informed electorate.
Ms. Angelo—
“All” Democrats did not advocate fo defund police, no. That’s a broad-brush straw man. Many did, and with destructive, ongoing effect.
Trump’s innocence is not the issue. Never was. Another straw man. The issue is partisan, selectee emphasis, and ultimate prosecution.
The problem that “defund the police“ poses for the Democrats is that during the summer of 2020 when “mostly peaceful“ demonstrations were turning into nightly riots in places like Portland, prominent Democrats and the liberal legacy media were totally silent about left-wing excesses. This created the completely valid perception that Democrats (and their supporters in the media) were not opposed to extreme viewpoints like defunding the police.
All of the “evidence“ about which Democrats are now opposed to defunding the police cannot make the perceptions from 2020 vanish, nor should they. People remember what they saw, and are more disposed to believe their “lying eyes” instead of what the Democrats are now trying to tell them really happened.
Give me a newspaper to hold in my hands loaded with local news and thoughtful letters to the editor. Twitter for twits. Cyber rants scooped up flagging hits and no hits profile sold to highest bidder forever, sucker.
How is the Democrats' alleged campaign to defund the police any different than Republicans' DOJ Derangement Syndrome?
Post a Comment