Beware Of Twitter X: Choosing A Safe Port In The Storm

The challenges posed by the rapidly expanding Bird App, and why I will remain in the hinterlands

I’ve been meaning for a while now to offer some brief commentary on what appears to be a seismic shift in the nature of social media relating to Muskian Twitter. It’s hardly the most intellectually stimulating subject to discuss, but, sadly, the attention economy is a cut-throat affair and this brings us to a recent post by Substack themselves regarding a dispute with Twitter:

In the last few weeks, following the launch of Notes, Twitter has chosen to restrict writers’ ability to share their work by hiding Substack previews and limiting the distribution of Substack links. It has also cut Substack off from its API, which means writers can no longer embed tweets in their posts. We are deeply disappointed by Twitter’s actions and have been trying to resolve the issue (unsuccessfully so far). We badly wish writers weren’t in this position. Writers should be able to share their work freely on Twitter and any other social network, wherever their readers may be. This is a challenging moment for writers who have used Twitter to help build their audience and who now find they need to revise their strategies.

The fact is, while everyone is getting excited (myself included) about owning the libs on Twitter now that a degree of free speech has returned, Mr. Musk is expanding his Bird App into areas that were previously off-limits to Twitter and this is going to prove more consequential than many content creators would appear to recognize.

Formerly, Twitter was used to shit-post and share your content, whether written or in video format. The platform was more or less devoid of any content itself unless you count the abomination that is the Twitter thread. What we’re witnessing unfolding before our eyes is what will probably be referred to by Musk in-house as ‘‘Twitter X’’ more commonly known as the ‘‘Everything App’’.