公開(kāi)承認(rèn)自己的錯(cuò)誤就像結(jié)腸鏡檢查一樣,當(dāng)然會(huì)令人不快,,但在根本上對(duì)你自己有益,。所以我要承認(rèn):我最初看錯(cuò)了Twitter。
在被埃隆·馬斯克收購(gòu)16年前的2006年,,Twitter的微博客服務(wù)剛剛推出,。當(dāng)時(shí),我認(rèn)為該服務(wù)沒(méi)有意義,。Twitter聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人杰克·多爾西稱(chēng)推文是“無(wú)關(guān)緊要信息的突然爆炸”,,我認(rèn)為這種說(shuō)法聽(tīng)起來(lái)很有道理。我可能曾公開(kāi)表達(dá)過(guò)這種觀點(diǎn),,最有可能是在Facebook或某個(gè)博客平臺(tái)上,。我記得曾在一篇文章中提出過(guò)一個(gè)質(zhì)疑,那就是一條推文和一條Facebook狀態(tài)更新有什么區(qū)別,?我已經(jīng)不記得這篇文章的發(fā)布時(shí)間,,它已經(jīng)被淹沒(méi)在在浩瀚的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)檔案館當(dāng)中。這兩者從根本上不是一回事嗎,?比如我午飯吃了某某某,。Twitter平臺(tái)只支持一次發(fā)布一兩句話(huà),,不能超過(guò)140個(gè)字符,為什么要加入這樣一個(gè)平臺(tái),?
我當(dāng)時(shí)并不理解,,但很快這種強(qiáng)制性的簡(jiǎn)潔要求(盡管現(xiàn)在的限制為280個(gè)字符)使Twitter大獲成功,這讓我明白了它的優(yōu)勢(shì)所在,。Twitter上確實(shí)可以發(fā)布圖片和視頻,,但從根本上它就是一個(gè)書(shū)寫(xiě)者的平臺(tái),要求用戶(hù)簡(jiǎn)潔明了,。
我很早就開(kāi)始寫(xiě)博客(并參與創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)網(wǎng)站Gawker,,它最終葬送在億萬(wàn)富翁彼得·泰爾和我弟弟的童年偶像霍克·霍肯手中)。我喜歡寫(xiě)博客的原因之一是它提供了一種新溝通模式:鏈接到其他博客,,可以與我不認(rèn)識(shí)的其他人進(jìn)行一次后續(xù)對(duì)話(huà),。你可以學(xué)到新知識(shí),接觸到以其他方式可能遇不到的人,,進(jìn)行在線(xiàn)下很難精心安排的對(duì)話(huà),。
Twitter的理想形式就是這個(gè)樣子。甚至更優(yōu)秀,。它回報(bào)那些考驗(yàn)智力的言論,、對(duì)共同經(jīng)歷的描述、對(duì)宏大問(wèn)題的分析以及搞笑的笑話(huà)等,。我在Twitter結(jié)交到的網(wǎng)友,,成為我真實(shí)生活中的好友。有許多次,,在Twitter平臺(tái)上與其他人深入探討存在分歧的觀點(diǎn)之后,,我都能更好地了解對(duì)方的觀點(diǎn),對(duì)于相關(guān)問(wèn)題也會(huì)有更細(xì)致的認(rèn)識(shí),。難怪Twitter上的對(duì)話(huà)會(huì)掀起影響深遠(yuǎn)的社會(huì)變革,,例如#MeToo運(yùn)動(dòng)以及跨性別人士權(quán)益運(yùn)動(dòng)和正視跨性別群體運(yùn)動(dòng)等,它也成為組織和支持“黑人的命也是命”等抗議運(yùn)動(dòng)的平臺(tái),。
但我們也很快認(rèn)識(shí)到,,Twitter上滋生了虛假信息、無(wú)端誹謗和騷擾,?;蛟S我們不應(yīng)該對(duì)此感到意外:公共廣場(chǎng)并不總是一個(gè)文明的地方,有許多人曾在公共廣場(chǎng)上被綁在火刑柱上被處死,。人們很快發(fā)現(xiàn),這個(gè)被許多人成為“地獄網(wǎng)站”的平臺(tái)獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)挑釁行為,,滋生了種族主義,、同性戀恐懼癥,、霸凌和厭女癥,并將這些情緒過(guò)度放大,。與其他社交媒體平臺(tái)一樣,,Twitter也證明它無(wú)法快速深入地打擊虛假信息,防止其動(dòng)搖美國(guó)的民主,。Twitter用戶(hù)可以匿名是一把雙刃劍:雖然能夠保護(hù)舉報(bào)者,,但也會(huì)被試圖騷擾他人或制造混亂的挑釁者所利用。
埃隆·馬斯克想要收購(gòu)這個(gè)平臺(tái),,也就不難理解,。
現(xiàn)在,這位特斯拉(Tesla)和SpaceX的CEO已經(jīng)以440億美元的高價(jià)收購(gòu)了Twitter,,他似乎打算將其徹底摧毀,。他通過(guò)電子郵件炒掉了關(guān)鍵人員;恢復(fù)了被封禁的賬號(hào),,包括許多有右翼傾向的賬號(hào)(包括前總統(tǒng)唐納德·特朗普的賬號(hào)),;并淘汰了對(duì)于Twitter的持續(xù)運(yùn)營(yíng)至關(guān)重要的大部分技術(shù)基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施,包括支持雙因素身份認(rèn)證的微服務(wù)等,。后來(lái)馬斯克意識(shí)到,,他辭退了一些Twitter實(shí)際需要的人才,于是緊急要求管理者重新招回這些員工,。我們之所以知道他的這些舉措,,部分原因是他自己實(shí)時(shí)在推文中公布了這些消息。用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)行業(yè)的說(shuō)法,,他一直在“網(wǎng)絡(luò)上全程發(fā)布”,。
億萬(wàn)富翁通常并不需要靠微博客來(lái)發(fā)出自己的聲音,他們?cè)趥鹘y(tǒng)媒體中能得到大量曝光,。因此,,為了了解擁有Twitter的吸引力,我們應(yīng)該思考Twitter如何影響我們看待這個(gè)世界的方式,。Twitter的日活躍用戶(hù)只有Facebook的一小部分,,但無(wú)論好壞,在Twitter有許多公眾人物,,還有許多記者和其他人塑造的敘事結(jié)構(gòu),,讓我們以為那就是現(xiàn)實(shí)。許多人通過(guò)Twitter獲取各種資訊,,無(wú)論是公共健康,、全球沖突還是哈里·斯泰爾斯在某一刻正在做的事情,他們還在這里形成自己的意識(shí)形態(tài)世界觀。
這既有好處,,也有壞處,。Twitter被用于組織和支持革命,最著名的是在2011年阿拉伯之春期間,,但也可能會(huì)被用于傳播有關(guān)QAnon的謊言以及其他許多種陰謀論,。在疫情期間,Twitter被用于宣傳配戴口罩,、保持社交距離和接種疫苗等建議,,但也成為反疫苗宣傳的傳播載體。它就是一份實(shí)時(shí)更新的文件,,記錄了某一時(shí)刻正在發(fā)生的事情,。如果你聽(tīng)到窗外傳來(lái)巨響,你可能會(huì)搜索“巨響”加上社區(qū)的名稱(chēng),,在幾分鐘內(nèi)查清楚導(dǎo)致巨響的原因,。
簡(jiǎn)單來(lái)說(shuō),Twitter是在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上發(fā)現(xiàn)和傳播信息最強(qiáng)大和最廣泛的機(jī)制之一,。如果你想要獲得影響力,,如果你有興趣重新塑造世界對(duì)某些事物的看法,你可能會(huì)使用Twitter,。如果你想要主導(dǎo)話(huà)語(yǔ)權(quán),,打壓那些反對(duì)你的人或者認(rèn)為你的笑話(huà)不好玩的人,你可能希望擁有這個(gè)平臺(tái),。
對(duì)于16年來(lái)在Twitter上花費(fèi)了大量時(shí)間的用戶(hù)來(lái)說(shuō),,很難想象沒(méi)有Twitter,這個(gè)世界會(huì)是什么樣子,,你會(huì)對(duì)它有什么感受,。
我們是否會(huì)找到這個(gè)問(wèn)題的答案?目前,,該網(wǎng)站就像是一場(chǎng)“慢鏡頭下的火車(chē)事故”,。貨幣化是馬斯克面臨的最大挑戰(zhàn)之一,尤其是為了償還為收購(gòu)Twitter所產(chǎn)生的債務(wù),,他每年需要支付十億美元左右,。Twitter的收入來(lái)源主要是廣告業(yè)務(wù),但馬斯克似乎莫名其妙地決定摧毀這個(gè)收入流,,并一直在疏遠(yuǎn)廣告商,,導(dǎo)致Twitter未能實(shí)現(xiàn)其廣告收入目標(biāo),并且差距巨大,。公司內(nèi)部人士對(duì)《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》表示,,公司將2022年最后一個(gè)季度的收入預(yù)期從14億美元下調(diào)到13億美元,,后來(lái)又進(jìn)一步下調(diào)至11億美元。自馬斯克接管Twitter以來(lái),,仇恨言論變得更加猖獗,,大規(guī)模裁員和辭職令該網(wǎng)站的內(nèi)容審查等業(yè)務(wù)陷入混亂,而馬斯克對(duì)工程部門(mén)的大幅裁員影響了該平臺(tái)的可用性,。
用戶(hù)會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)各種小故障:通知標(biāo)簽無(wú)效,網(wǎng)站加載異常等,。如果你像我一樣是一位自由主義女性作家,,你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)有越來(lái)越多的男性用不堪入耳的詞匯侮辱你,并使用“強(qiáng)奸”這個(gè)詞,。與此同時(shí),,有一半廣告商已經(jīng)離開(kāi)了Twitter平臺(tái),因?yàn)槠脚_(tái)上充斥著品牌商不愿意產(chǎn)生關(guān)聯(lián)的大量推文,,例如猥褻的梗圖,、過(guò)于偏激的長(zhǎng)篇大論和賬號(hào)被恢復(fù)的白人至上主義者。
我首先想到的是“溫水煮青蛙”這個(gè)比喻,,但Twitter目前的狀況更像是你正在從上方看人們玩一場(chǎng)疊疊樂(lè)塔游戲,。你眼看著一塊塊積木被抽走,整個(gè)結(jié)構(gòu)變得不穩(wěn)定,。你很清楚,,這個(gè)積木塔終究將崩潰。但從表面上看,,它依舊完好無(wú)損,。馬斯克認(rèn)為一切順利,因?yàn)槠脚_(tái)上有許多用戶(hù),。當(dāng)然是這樣,。人們也會(huì)圍觀車(chē)禍現(xiàn)場(chǎng)。
馬斯克利用Twitter放大自己的聲量,,并與不同右翼人士達(dá)成一致,,這種做法既不新鮮也很無(wú)趣:媒體老板經(jīng)常將他們的平臺(tái)用于政治和個(gè)人目的。魯伯特·默多克雖然不會(huì)持續(xù)發(fā)聲,,但他的意識(shí)形態(tài)影響力影響了??怂梗‵ox)、《紐約郵報(bào)》和《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》社論專(zhuān)欄解釋這個(gè)世界的方式,。
但Twitter發(fā)生這種情況令人蒙羞,,因?yàn)殡m然這個(gè)地獄網(wǎng)站上有各種混亂的信息,但總體上它是一個(gè)很棒的平臺(tái),。
它的混亂是某種民主精神的體現(xiàn),。理論上,,任何沒(méi)有在該平臺(tái)上付費(fèi)購(gòu)買(mǎi)特殊功能的用戶(hù)可用的資源是相同的,無(wú)論你是美利堅(jiān)合眾國(guó)的總統(tǒng),,還是昨天剛剛加入該平臺(tái),、默認(rèn)頭像仍是一顆蛋的@john292838374。(事實(shí)上,,Twitter上也存在一種等級(jí)體系,,粉絲數(shù)量越多的用戶(hù)聲量越高,有藍(lán)色復(fù)選標(biāo)志“認(rèn)證”的用戶(hù)有時(shí)候被認(rèn)為可信度更高,,因?yàn)槟闱宄麄兊恼鎸?shí)身份,,而不是躲在寬帶背后穿著風(fēng)衣的三個(gè)見(jiàn)不得人的小人。馬斯克也在廢除該系統(tǒng),。)
雖然有些言不由衷,,但Twitter本身有一種令人開(kāi)心的、復(fù)古的惡作劇特性,。我最難忘的是有一位好朋友在Twitter上注冊(cè)了一個(gè)假冒我的賬號(hào)@wise_spiers(聰明的施皮爾斯),。聰明的施皮爾斯是極端的、滑稽的另外一個(gè)我:她的個(gè)人簡(jiǎn)介寫(xiě)的是“嬌小,、神秘的空想家”,,她說(shuō)話(huà)的樣子像是一臺(tái)異常堅(jiān)定和雄心勃勃的機(jī)器人。這個(gè)賬戶(hù)只是為了以友善的方式調(diào)侃我,,發(fā)布我們之間的一些笑話(huà),。當(dāng)時(shí),我是紐約一家報(bào)社的總編,,我的下屬都關(guān)注了那個(gè)賬號(hào),,這讓我有些慌張。那并不是朋友最初的意圖,,但在發(fā)現(xiàn)這種情況之后,,反而讓他備受鼓舞。Twitter的服務(wù)條款特別禁止假冒他人身份,,這個(gè)賬號(hào)最終被封禁,,而我也因此獲得了一個(gè)藍(lán)色復(fù)選標(biāo)志。但我寧愿不要這個(gè)標(biāo)志,,也希望能恢復(fù)聰明的施皮爾斯的賬號(hào),。那個(gè)賬號(hào)給我?guī)?lái)了很多快樂(lè)。
現(xiàn)在的問(wèn)題是,,Twitter能否忍受目前的狀況,?我想重點(diǎn)強(qiáng)調(diào)的是,馬斯克是咎由自取,。他在收購(gòu)Twitter前,,既不屑于了解它的業(yè)務(wù),,也沒(méi)有了解它的技術(shù)運(yùn)行方式,盡管他自稱(chēng)是嚴(yán)格的代碼檢查者,,他也不清楚品牌安全對(duì)廣告商的重要性?,F(xiàn)在他需要彌補(bǔ)自己的過(guò)失。
我認(rèn)為,,埃隆·馬斯克的Twitter面臨的最大的生存威脅很容易理解:我們最終會(huì)厭倦這個(gè)平臺(tái),。我們對(duì)馬斯克令人討厭的挑釁言論也是類(lèi)似的心態(tài)。除非他能亡羊補(bǔ)牢,,否則該網(wǎng)站糟糕的狀況將導(dǎo)致用戶(hù)流失,。每天都有大批用戶(hù)離開(kāi),尋找新的數(shù)字空間,,他們隨之帶走了有力的觀點(diǎn)、新鮮的創(chuàng)意,、尖銳的問(wèn)題和有趣的笑話(huà),。
這令人惋惜。16年前,,我錯(cuò)誤地以為T(mén)witter毫無(wú)意義,。實(shí)際上它很有趣,而且它曾經(jīng)有一個(gè)使命,。但很快,,它變得索然無(wú)味,而在這個(gè)平臺(tái)上花費(fèi)時(shí)間變得越來(lái)越?jīng)]有意義,。
多爾西和同事打造的那個(gè)混亂但充滿(mǎn)活力的廣場(chǎng),,還沒(méi)有徹底消失,但我已經(jīng)開(kāi)始懷念它,。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng))
本文作者伊麗莎白·施皮爾斯為《Gawker》的創(chuàng)始編輯,,曾建立Dealbreaker等多個(gè)博客。她還曾是《財(cái)富》雜志金融與經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)域的專(zhuān)欄作家,。她已經(jīng)使用Twitter 14年,。
Fortune.com上發(fā)表的評(píng)論文章中表達(dá)的觀點(diǎn),僅代表作者本人的觀點(diǎn),,并不代表《財(cái)富》雜志的觀點(diǎn)和立場(chǎng),。
翻譯:劉進(jìn)龍
審校:汪皓
公開(kāi)承認(rèn)自己的錯(cuò)誤就像結(jié)腸鏡檢查一樣,當(dāng)然會(huì)令人不快,,但在根本上對(duì)你自己有益,。所以我要承認(rèn):我最初看錯(cuò)了Twitter。
在被埃隆·馬斯克收購(gòu)16年前的2006年,,Twitter的微博客服務(wù)剛剛推出,。當(dāng)時(shí),,我認(rèn)為該服務(wù)沒(méi)有意義。Twitter聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人杰克·多爾西稱(chēng)推文是“無(wú)關(guān)緊要信息的突然爆炸”,,我認(rèn)為這種說(shuō)法聽(tīng)起來(lái)很有道理,。我可能曾公開(kāi)表達(dá)過(guò)這種觀點(diǎn),最有可能是在Facebook或某個(gè)博客平臺(tái)上,。我記得曾在一篇文章中提出過(guò)一個(gè)質(zhì)疑,,那就是一條推文和一條Facebook狀態(tài)更新有什么區(qū)別?我已經(jīng)不記得這篇文章的發(fā)布時(shí)間,,它已經(jīng)被淹沒(méi)在在浩瀚的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)檔案館當(dāng)中,。這兩者從根本上不是一回事嗎?比如我午飯吃了某某某,。Twitter平臺(tái)只支持一次發(fā)布一兩句話(huà),,不能超過(guò)140個(gè)字符,為什么要加入這樣一個(gè)平臺(tái),?
我當(dāng)時(shí)并不理解,,但很快這種強(qiáng)制性的簡(jiǎn)潔要求(盡管現(xiàn)在的限制為280個(gè)字符)使Twitter大獲成功,這讓我明白了它的優(yōu)勢(shì)所在,。Twitter上確實(shí)可以發(fā)布圖片和視頻,,但從根本上它就是一個(gè)書(shū)寫(xiě)者的平臺(tái),要求用戶(hù)簡(jiǎn)潔明了,。
我很早就開(kāi)始寫(xiě)博客(并參與創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)網(wǎng)站Gawker,,它最終葬送在億萬(wàn)富翁彼得·泰爾和我弟弟的童年偶像霍克·霍肯手中)。我喜歡寫(xiě)博客的原因之一是它提供了一種新溝通模式:鏈接到其他博客,,可以與我不認(rèn)識(shí)的其他人進(jìn)行一次后續(xù)對(duì)話(huà),。你可以學(xué)到新知識(shí),接觸到以其他方式可能遇不到的人,,進(jìn)行在線(xiàn)下很難精心安排的對(duì)話(huà),。
Twitter的理想形式就是這個(gè)樣子。甚至更優(yōu)秀,。它回報(bào)那些考驗(yàn)智力的言論,、對(duì)共同經(jīng)歷的描述、對(duì)宏大問(wèn)題的分析以及搞笑的笑話(huà)等,。我在Twitter結(jié)交到的網(wǎng)友,,成為我真實(shí)生活中的好友。有許多次,,在Twitter平臺(tái)上與其他人深入探討存在分歧的觀點(diǎn)之后,,我都能更好地了解對(duì)方的觀點(diǎn),對(duì)于相關(guān)問(wèn)題也會(huì)有更細(xì)致的認(rèn)識(shí),。難怪Twitter上的對(duì)話(huà)會(huì)掀起影響深遠(yuǎn)的社會(huì)變革,,例如#MeToo運(yùn)動(dòng)以及跨性別人士權(quán)益運(yùn)動(dòng)和正視跨性別群體運(yùn)動(dòng)等,,它也成為組織和支持“黑人的命也是命”等抗議運(yùn)動(dòng)的平臺(tái)。
但我們也很快認(rèn)識(shí)到,,Twitter上滋生了虛假信息,、無(wú)端誹謗和騷擾?;蛟S我們不應(yīng)該對(duì)此感到意外:公共廣場(chǎng)并不總是一個(gè)文明的地方,,有許多人曾在公共廣場(chǎng)上被綁在火刑柱上被處死。人們很快發(fā)現(xiàn),,這個(gè)被許多人成為“地獄網(wǎng)站”的平臺(tái)獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)挑釁行為,,滋生了種族主義、同性戀恐懼癥,、霸凌和厭女癥,,并將這些情緒過(guò)度放大。與其他社交媒體平臺(tái)一樣,,Twitter也證明它無(wú)法快速深入地打擊虛假信息,,防止其動(dòng)搖美國(guó)的民主。Twitter用戶(hù)可以匿名是一把雙刃劍:雖然能夠保護(hù)舉報(bào)者,,但也會(huì)被試圖騷擾他人或制造混亂的挑釁者所利用。
埃隆·馬斯克想要收購(gòu)這個(gè)平臺(tái),,也就不難理解,。
現(xiàn)在,這位特斯拉(Tesla)和SpaceX的CEO已經(jīng)以440億美元的高價(jià)收購(gòu)了Twitter,,他似乎打算將其徹底摧毀,。他通過(guò)電子郵件炒掉了關(guān)鍵人員;恢復(fù)了被封禁的賬號(hào),,包括許多有右翼傾向的賬號(hào)(包括前總統(tǒng)唐納德·特朗普的賬號(hào)),;并淘汰了對(duì)于Twitter的持續(xù)運(yùn)營(yíng)至關(guān)重要的大部分技術(shù)基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施,包括支持雙因素身份認(rèn)證的微服務(wù)等,。后來(lái)馬斯克意識(shí)到,,他辭退了一些Twitter實(shí)際需要的人才,于是緊急要求管理者重新招回這些員工,。我們之所以知道他的這些舉措,,部分原因是他自己實(shí)時(shí)在推文中公布了這些消息。用互聯(lián)網(wǎng)行業(yè)的說(shuō)法,,他一直在“網(wǎng)絡(luò)上全程發(fā)布”,。
億萬(wàn)富翁通常并不需要靠微博客來(lái)發(fā)出自己的聲音,他們?cè)趥鹘y(tǒng)媒體中能得到大量曝光,。因此,,為了了解擁有Twitter的吸引力,,我們應(yīng)該思考Twitter如何影響我們看待這個(gè)世界的方式。Twitter的日活躍用戶(hù)只有Facebook的一小部分,,但無(wú)論好壞,,在Twitter有許多公眾人物,還有許多記者和其他人塑造的敘事結(jié)構(gòu),,讓我們以為那就是現(xiàn)實(shí),。許多人通過(guò)Twitter獲取各種資訊,無(wú)論是公共健康,、全球沖突還是哈里·斯泰爾斯在某一刻正在做的事情,,他們還在這里形成自己的意識(shí)形態(tài)世界觀。
這既有好處,,也有壞處,。Twitter被用于組織和支持革命,最著名的是在2011年阿拉伯之春期間,,但也可能會(huì)被用于傳播有關(guān)QAnon的謊言以及其他許多種陰謀論,。在疫情期間,Twitter被用于宣傳配戴口罩,、保持社交距離和接種疫苗等建議,,但也成為反疫苗宣傳的傳播載體。它就是一份實(shí)時(shí)更新的文件,,記錄了某一時(shí)刻正在發(fā)生的事情,。如果你聽(tīng)到窗外傳來(lái)巨響,你可能會(huì)搜索“巨響”加上社區(qū)的名稱(chēng),,在幾分鐘內(nèi)查清楚導(dǎo)致巨響的原因,。
簡(jiǎn)單來(lái)說(shuō),Twitter是在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上發(fā)現(xiàn)和傳播信息最強(qiáng)大和最廣泛的機(jī)制之一,。如果你想要獲得影響力,,如果你有興趣重新塑造世界對(duì)某些事物的看法,你可能會(huì)使用Twitter,。如果你想要主導(dǎo)話(huà)語(yǔ)權(quán),,打壓那些反對(duì)你的人或者認(rèn)為你的笑話(huà)不好玩的人,你可能希望擁有這個(gè)平臺(tái),。
對(duì)于16年來(lái)在Twitter上花費(fèi)了大量時(shí)間的用戶(hù)來(lái)說(shuō),,很難想象沒(méi)有Twitter,這個(gè)世界會(huì)是什么樣子,,你會(huì)對(duì)它有什么感受,。
我們是否會(huì)找到這個(gè)問(wèn)題的答案?目前,該網(wǎng)站就像是一場(chǎng)“慢鏡頭下的火車(chē)事故”,。貨幣化是馬斯克面臨的最大挑戰(zhàn)之一,,尤其是為了償還為收購(gòu)Twitter所產(chǎn)生的債務(wù),他每年需要支付十億美元左右,。Twitter的收入來(lái)源主要是廣告業(yè)務(wù),,但馬斯克似乎莫名其妙地決定摧毀這個(gè)收入流,并一直在疏遠(yuǎn)廣告商,,導(dǎo)致Twitter未能實(shí)現(xiàn)其廣告收入目標(biāo),,并且差距巨大。公司內(nèi)部人士對(duì)《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》表示,,公司將2022年最后一個(gè)季度的收入預(yù)期從14億美元下調(diào)到13億美元,,后來(lái)又進(jìn)一步下調(diào)至11億美元。自馬斯克接管Twitter以來(lái),,仇恨言論變得更加猖獗,,大規(guī)模裁員和辭職令該網(wǎng)站的內(nèi)容審查等業(yè)務(wù)陷入混亂,而馬斯克對(duì)工程部門(mén)的大幅裁員影響了該平臺(tái)的可用性,。
用戶(hù)會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)各種小故障:通知標(biāo)簽無(wú)效,,網(wǎng)站加載異常等。如果你像我一樣是一位自由主義女性作家,,你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)有越來(lái)越多的男性用不堪入耳的詞匯侮辱你,,并使用“強(qiáng)奸”這個(gè)詞。與此同時(shí),,有一半廣告商已經(jīng)離開(kāi)了Twitter平臺(tái),,因?yàn)槠脚_(tái)上充斥著品牌商不愿意產(chǎn)生關(guān)聯(lián)的大量推文,例如猥褻的梗圖,、過(guò)于偏激的長(zhǎng)篇大論和賬號(hào)被恢復(fù)的白人至上主義者。
我首先想到的是“溫水煮青蛙”這個(gè)比喻,,但Twitter目前的狀況更像是你正在從上方看人們玩一場(chǎng)疊疊樂(lè)塔游戲,。你眼看著一塊塊積木被抽走,整個(gè)結(jié)構(gòu)變得不穩(wěn)定,。你很清楚,,這個(gè)積木塔終究將崩潰。但從表面上看,,它依舊完好無(wú)損,。馬斯克認(rèn)為一切順利,因?yàn)槠脚_(tái)上有許多用戶(hù),。當(dāng)然是這樣,。人們也會(huì)圍觀車(chē)禍現(xiàn)場(chǎng)。
馬斯克利用Twitter放大自己的聲量,,并與不同右翼人士達(dá)成一致,,這種做法既不新鮮也很無(wú)趣:媒體老板經(jīng)常將他們的平臺(tái)用于政治和個(gè)人目的,。魯伯特·默多克雖然不會(huì)持續(xù)發(fā)聲,但他的意識(shí)形態(tài)影響力影響了??怂梗‵ox),、《紐約郵報(bào)》和《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》社論專(zhuān)欄解釋這個(gè)世界的方式。
但Twitter發(fā)生這種情況令人蒙羞,,因?yàn)殡m然這個(gè)地獄網(wǎng)站上有各種混亂的信息,,但總體上它是一個(gè)很棒的平臺(tái)。
它的混亂是某種民主精神的體現(xiàn),。理論上,,任何沒(méi)有在該平臺(tái)上付費(fèi)購(gòu)買(mǎi)特殊功能的用戶(hù)可用的資源是相同的,無(wú)論你是美利堅(jiān)合眾國(guó)的總統(tǒng),,還是昨天剛剛加入該平臺(tái),、默認(rèn)頭像仍是一顆蛋的@john292838374。(事實(shí)上,,Twitter上也存在一種等級(jí)體系,,粉絲數(shù)量越多的用戶(hù)聲量越高,有藍(lán)色復(fù)選標(biāo)志“認(rèn)證”的用戶(hù)有時(shí)候被認(rèn)為可信度更高,,因?yàn)槟闱宄麄兊恼鎸?shí)身份,,而不是躲在寬帶背后穿著風(fēng)衣的三個(gè)見(jiàn)不得人的小人。馬斯克也在廢除該系統(tǒng),。)
雖然有些言不由衷,,但Twitter本身有一種令人開(kāi)心的、復(fù)古的惡作劇特性,。我最難忘的是有一位好朋友在Twitter上注冊(cè)了一個(gè)假冒我的賬號(hào)@wise_spiers(聰明的施皮爾斯),。聰明的施皮爾斯是極端的、滑稽的另外一個(gè)我:她的個(gè)人簡(jiǎn)介寫(xiě)的是“嬌小,、神秘的空想家”,,她說(shuō)話(huà)的樣子像是一臺(tái)異常堅(jiān)定和雄心勃勃的機(jī)器人。這個(gè)賬戶(hù)只是為了以友善的方式調(diào)侃我,,發(fā)布我們之間的一些笑話(huà),。當(dāng)時(shí),我是紐約一家報(bào)社的總編,,我的下屬都關(guān)注了那個(gè)賬號(hào),,這讓我有些慌張。那并不是朋友最初的意圖,,但在發(fā)現(xiàn)這種情況之后,,反而讓他備受鼓舞。Twitter的服務(wù)條款特別禁止假冒他人身份,這個(gè)賬號(hào)最終被封禁,,而我也因此獲得了一個(gè)藍(lán)色復(fù)選標(biāo)志,。但我寧愿不要這個(gè)標(biāo)志,也希望能恢復(fù)聰明的施皮爾斯的賬號(hào),。那個(gè)賬號(hào)給我?guī)?lái)了很多快樂(lè),。
現(xiàn)在的問(wèn)題是,Twitter能否忍受目前的狀況,?我想重點(diǎn)強(qiáng)調(diào)的是,,馬斯克是咎由自取。他在收購(gòu)Twitter前,,既不屑于了解它的業(yè)務(wù),,也沒(méi)有了解它的技術(shù)運(yùn)行方式,盡管他自稱(chēng)是嚴(yán)格的代碼檢查者,,他也不清楚品牌安全對(duì)廣告商的重要性?,F(xiàn)在他需要彌補(bǔ)自己的過(guò)失。
我認(rèn)為,,埃隆·馬斯克的Twitter面臨的最大的生存威脅很容易理解:我們最終會(huì)厭倦這個(gè)平臺(tái),。我們對(duì)馬斯克令人討厭的挑釁言論也是類(lèi)似的心態(tài)。除非他能亡羊補(bǔ)牢,,否則該網(wǎng)站糟糕的狀況將導(dǎo)致用戶(hù)流失,。每天都有大批用戶(hù)離開(kāi),尋找新的數(shù)字空間,,他們隨之帶走了有力的觀點(diǎn),、新鮮的創(chuàng)意、尖銳的問(wèn)題和有趣的笑話(huà),。
這令人惋惜,。16年前,我錯(cuò)誤地以為T(mén)witter毫無(wú)意義,。實(shí)際上它很有趣,,而且它曾經(jīng)有一個(gè)使命。但很快,,它變得索然無(wú)味,,而在這個(gè)平臺(tái)上花費(fèi)時(shí)間變得越來(lái)越?jīng)]有意義,。
多爾西和同事打造的那個(gè)混亂但充滿(mǎn)活力的廣場(chǎng),,還沒(méi)有徹底消失,但我已經(jīng)開(kāi)始懷念它,。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng))
本文作者伊麗莎白·施皮爾斯為《Gawker》的創(chuàng)始編輯,,曾建立Dealbreaker等多個(gè)博客。她還曾是《財(cái)富》雜志金融與經(jīng)濟(jì)領(lǐng)域的專(zhuān)欄作家。她已經(jīng)使用Twitter 14年,。
Fortune.com上發(fā)表的評(píng)論文章中表達(dá)的觀點(diǎn),,僅代表作者本人的觀點(diǎn),并不代表《財(cái)富》雜志的觀點(diǎn)和立場(chǎng),。
翻譯:劉進(jìn)龍
審校:汪皓
Admitting you are wrong in public is deeply unpleasant and fundamentally good for you, like a colonoscopy. So here goes: I was wrong about Twitter.
When the microblogging service launched in 2006, 16 years before it was bought by Elon Musk, I thought it sounded pointless. Co-founder Jack Dorsey described a tweet as “a short burst of inconsequential information,” and I thought, that sounds about right. I probably said this publicly somewhere—most likely Facebook or some blogging platform. What’s the difference, I remember writing, in a post lost to time and the bowels of The Internet Archive, between a tweet and a Facebook status update? Aren’t they basically the same thing? Here’s what I had for lunch: blah blah blah. And why join a platform that only allows you to write a sentence or two at a time—nothing longer than 140 characters?
What I didn’t understand then, but came to soon after, is that Twitter worked in part because of the enforced brevity (even though the character limit is now 280 characters). Yes, there are images and videos, but it’s fundamentally a writer’s platform, requiring the user to be pithy and concise.
I’d been an early adapter to blogging (and co-founded a website called Gawker that eventually died at the hands of a billionaire named Peter Thiel and my younger brother’s childhood hero, Hulk Hogan). What I’d loved about early blogging was its new mode of communication: Linking to another blog created a kind of meta conversation with other people I’d never met. You could learn new things, meet people you’d never otherwise encounter, and have conversations that would be difficult to engineer offline.
Twitter, in its ideal form, was exactly like that. Even better. It rewarded intellectually challenging arguments, articulations of shared experience, parsing of big questions, and funny jokes. I’ve made friends on Twitter who became my friends in real life. Many times, after talking through a point of disagreement with someone else on the platform, I came away understanding their point of view better, and with a more nuanced understanding of the issue at hand. It’s no wonder that conversations on Twitter drove profound societal shifts such as #MeToo and the movements for trans rights and visibility, and that it was a place to organize and consolidate support for protests such as Black Lives Matter.
Also, we all soon came to understand, Twitter is a cesspool of disinformation, gratuitous sniping, and harassment. Perhaps that shouldn’t have surprised us: The public square is not always a civil place, and plenty of people have been burned at the stake in one. But it soon became clear that the platform many began to refer to as a “hellsite” rewards provocation, and nurtured racism, homophobia, bullying, and misogyny—while amplifying it to unprecedented proportions. Twitter, like other social media platforms, has also shown that it cannot combat disinformation deeply or quickly enough to prevent it from destabilizing democracies. And the ability to be anonymous as a user is a double-edged sword: good for whistleblowers, and also good for trolls who want to harass others or create chaos.
It’s no wonder that Elon Musk wanted to buy it.
Now that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has bought Twitter for the inflated price of $44 billion, he seems intent upon burning it to the ground. He has fired crucial personnel via email; reinstated accounts that were banned, including many with a right-wing bent (including the account of former President Donald Trump); and eliminated much of the technological infrastructure that is crucial to Twitter’s continued ability to function, including many of the microservices that power features such as two-factor authentication. Musk then realized he fired some people Twitter actually needs and frantically had managers try to recruit them back. We know that he’s done all of this in part because he has Tweeted about it, in real time. He is, in internet parlance, “posting through it.”
Billionaires generally do not need microblogging platforms to be heard—they get plenty of coverage in the traditional media. So to understand the appeal of owning Twitter, it’s worth considering how it has affected the way we process the world. Twitter’s daily active users are just a small fraction of Facebook’s, but for better or worse, a lot of public figures are on Twitter, and so are a lot of journalists and other people who shape narrative constructions of what we perceive to be reality. Whether about public health, global conflicts, or whatever Harry Styles is doing at any given moment, a lot of people get their news from Twitter, as well as their ideological worldview.
This is both good and bad. It has been used to organize and support revolutions—most famously during the Arab Spring of 2011—and also to disseminate the lies of QAnon and many other conspiracies. During the pandemic, it was useful for distributing advice about masking, social distancing, and vaccines—but also a vector for anti-vaxxer propaganda. It is such a living document of what is happening at any given moment, that if you hear a loud boom through your window, you can probably search “l(fā)oud boom” along with the name of your neighborhood, and find out what caused the sound in minutes.
Twitter is, put simply, one of the most powerful and expansive mechanisms for information discovery and distribution on the internet. If you want influence, if you’re interested in reshaping how the world thinks about things, you’re probably on Twitter. If you want to dominate the discourse and squash anyone who disagrees with you or thinks your jokes are unfunny, you might want to own it.
And for those of us who have spent significant time on Twitter for 16 years, it’s hard to imagine what the world will look and feel like without it.
Will we have to find out? Right now, the site is a slow-motion train wreck. Monetization is one of Musk’s biggest challenges, especially given the billion or so a year he has to pay to service the debt he used to buy the company. Twitter is monetized primarily through advertising, though Musk seems inexplicably determined to destroy that revenue stream and has been alienating advertisers, causing Twitter to miss its ad sales targets by large margins. Company insiders told The New York Times that the company has cut its revenue projections from $1.4 billion in the last quarter of 2022 to $1.3 billion, and then to $1.1 billion. Since Musk took over, hate speech has become more viral, the site’s content moderation and other operations have been snarled by the epic staff layoffs and resignations, and Musk’s disemboweling of engineering departments are rendering the platform less usable.
As a user, you experience it in glitches: Your notification tab doesn’t work, the site loads weirdly. If you’re a liberal woman writer, as I am, you may notice an uptick in the number of men calling you unspeakable things and invoking the word “rape.” Meanwhile, half of Twitter’s advertisers have left the platform as it has been flooded with tweets that brands don’t want to be anywhere near—racy memes, overtly partisan screeds, and white supremacists whose accounts have been reinstated.
“Frog boiling in water” is the first metaphor that comes to mind, but it’s really more like looking at a Jenga tower from above as the game is being played. You know pieces are disappearing one by one and it’s making the whole thing more unstable. You understand that eventually, it’s going to all come crashing down. But it still looks whole on the surface. Musk thinks this is all going very well because there are a lot of people on the platform. And of course there are. People also gawk at car crashes.
The fact that Musk has used Twitter to amplify and agree with various right-wing figures is not particularly novel or interesting in itself: Media owners have always used their outlets for political and personal ends. Rupert Murdoch doesn’t post through it, but his ideological fingerprints are all over the way Fox, The New York Post, and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal explain the world.
It’s a shame this is happening at Twitter, however, because that hellsite was often a great place to be, for all of its messiness.
Its mess was the mess of a certain kind of democracy. In theory, the resources available to a user who’s not paying for special features on the platform are the same whether you’re President of the United States, or @john292838374 who joined yesterday and whose avatar is still the default egg. (In practice, there is a bit of a hierarchy in that users with more followers are heard more, and users who were “verified” with blue check marks are sometimes considered more credible because you know they are who they say they are, and are not secretly three weasels in a trench coat with a broadband connection. Musk is dismantling that system too.)
But even when it isn’t entirely sincere, Twitter can have a kind of delightful, retro mischievousness to it. A favorite memory for me is the time when one of my best friends was impersonating me on Twitter under an account titled @wise_spiers. Wise Spiers was an extreme, caricatured version of me: Her bio was “tiny mysterious visionary” and she talked like a very determined and ambitious robot. The account basically existed to lovingly skewer me and advance our inside jokes. I was the editor in chief of a New York newspaper at the time, and slightly to my horror, my staffers followed the account. This was not my friend’s intention, but once he realized it was happening, it only encouraged him. Twitter’s terms of service specifically prohibit impersonation and eventually the account was banned — and I ended up with a blue check as a result. I’d give back the blue check to have Wise Spiers back, though. It was hilarious.
The question now is, will Twitter endure? I cannot emphasize this enough: Musk did this to himself. He did not bother to understand Twitter’s business before he bought the company, did not learn how its technology works despite his pretensions of being an exacting examiner of code, and did not understand how important brand safety is to advertisers. Now he has to make it up.
But I think the biggest existential threat to Elon Musk’s Twitter is simpler: We’ll all finally get bored of it. There’s a sameness to Musk’s provocations that is tiresome. And unless he fixes the things he’s broken, the jankiness of the site will drive users away. Great people leave every day, searching for new digital spaces to set up camp in — and they take with them their strong opinions, fresh ideas, hard questions, and funny jokes.
That’s a shame. I was wrong 16 years ago when I thought Twitter was pointless. It was interesting, and it served a purpose. But it’s becoming uninteresting quickly, and spending time on it is increasingly, well… actually pointless.
That messy, vibrant town square that Dorsey and his colleagues created is not completely gone yet, but I already miss it.
Elizabeth Spiers was the founding editor of Gawker, and started Dealbreaker and several other blogs. She is also a former columnist for Fortune, writing about finance and economics. She has been on Twitter for 14 years.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.