On The Twitter Problem

Where To Find Me On Social Media

I made my social media bones on Twitter. From 2009 until today, I racked up 360,000 Tweets and 1.6 million followers. It was always broken in some way or another, but it was this vital, newsy place for long enough for me to feel a bit heartbroken about what it’s become today. Let’s be clear about Elon’s garbage claim that “it’s a pure free speech platform.”

It’s absurd.

Elon has juiced the system to flood the zone on every comment, every post, and every statement with right-wing trolls. It’s become essentially unusable as a communications platform, which is, of course, the point.

Let me also be clear about the trolls in my timeline: you’re not making some glittering rhetorical sally when you dump out your low-wattage takes, sub-par memes, and dumb slogans. You’re just convincing me that the franchise in this nation is too widely given. For the antivax whackjobs, you’re convincing me that re-education camps might not be a bad idea.

For those of you who bought a $8/month Verified badge, aren’t you special? I know the algo boosts you in every reply, but you'd be better off if you’d spent that $8 on books.

The torrent of AI bots, foreign bots, and spam accounts makes Twitter a misery, which, again, is the point. Elon wants it to be a pro-Trump echo chamber, and the noise from the garbage accounts is a feature, not a bug.

The weirdly butthurt sore-winner phenomenal on Twitter in the wake of Trump’s win comes down to “You lost, shut up forever.” It’s just…boring. 99.999% of these people have never won or lost anything, much less a campaign.

No, I’m not deleting my Twitter account, but I did take it off my phone. It’s been a great boon to my mental health. I’ll still post there, but the days of looking for interesting ideas, compelling arguments, and newsworthy items are long gone.


BlueSky: The New Good Place (Sorry, Threads). It’s got the tools we need to communicate and a strong Old Twitter (pre-Elon, perhaps even pre-Trump) vibe that encourages good communication. I’m posting more here about news and items of interest.

Threads: Threads is the Nice Place, but their suppression of politics feeds — you have to opt-in to get content like mine — is a mistake. Expect more cute pics of cats, dogs, Renee, and the Grandchild here than elsewhere, at least for now.


Sez.us is a startup platform founded by my friend Joe Trippi. Of all the new systems, it’s got the most innovative algorithm: it will elevate good content and punish trolls, Nazis, etc. It’s small but fascinating.

Instagram: We do love the Gram.

Facebook: I have a Facebook because my PR people made me have one. I don’t do much there, so please don’t be offended if I haven’t responded to your messages there.

LinkedIn: I am not on LinkedIn. Nothing personal; I just know what it would mean.

A few years ago someone posted a funny list of ways to reach him:

1. Call
2. Text
3. Twitter DM
4. Facebook message
5. Crawl through my window and kill me.
6. LinkedIn message

Social media is rapidly consuming us all, but we can choose what social media we consume.