Watching 📱Social Media Burn🔥

I know we're all reveling at the dumpster fire that is Twitter nowadays, but I have long had the feeling that ALL social media is a disaster in some way.

Since I organized a social media art exhibition back in 2010 at Outpost in Ridgewood, New York, I’ve been aware that these platforms bring out some of the strangest and worst aspects of our culture. The latest drama involves Twitter (though I find it strange few people are discussing the layoffs of 11,000 employees — 13% — at Meta).

So, here I am creating a newsletter that will allow me to stay connected with readers and friends in case it all burns down. This newsletter will be my favorite mix of casual, notable, and insightful. All three things I value. And if you’ve followed me on other platforms (in addition to Twitter, I’m on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Flickr), then you know I take social media seriously (in a funny way, of course).

Now, some funny tweets about the chaos reigning at Twitter.

Enjoy.

Activist Rafael Shimunov pointed out that some jokester took advantage of Twitter’s new “verification” tool to masquerade as the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical company to suggest insulin is now free. Well, the stock market didn’t respond well.

Rafael Shimunov is on Mastodon @rafaelshimunov

Did Twitter Blue tweet just cost Eli Lilly $LLY billions? Yes.

And it’s no surprise why so many weird things are happening at Twitter now:

Kurt Wagner @KurtWagner8

NEW: Hearing that the top execs remaining at Twitter -- head of Trust & Safety @yoyoel and head of sales @robinw -- both resigned today When you add in that Musk told employees this afternoon that bankruptcy is possible, it feels like Twitter is almost collapsing in real-time

Brianna Wu @BriannaWu

1/ Just want to put this news in plain language for people. Senior people at Twitter have resigned in the last 48 hours. We now now why. They said in private Slack channels that @elonmusk is so desperate to recoup his money, he’s taking crazy risks with YOUR privacy and safety.

And even those left in Twitter are pointing out some curious things:

Zoë Schiffer @ZoeSchiffer

NEW: A senior member of Twitter’s legal team just posted this message in Slack:“Everyone should know that our CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer ALL resigned last night. This news will be buried in the return-to-office drama. I believe that is intentional.”

And media sources are considering what to do with this new “wild west” attitude towards Twitter:

Max Tani @maxwelltani

In a note to staff today, Bloomberg EIC John Micklethwait said that recent changes at Twitter have “heightened the risk of using the platform as a source of news.” He also said the company would not allow staff to expense a Twitter Blue account.

I mean, what did Elon Musk think was going to happen when he started offering blue checkmarks to anyone who could pay?

New York Shitty @newyorkshitty

Also, I can’t believe this might be true:

👻madeline odent 👻 @oldenoughtosay

if this website dies before Henry Kissinger I swear to god

More soon.