A Musk tweet a day keeps the doctor away

As the app’s new management and changes roll in, more professionals are considering the move out of Twitter. (Photo: Healthline)

At the start of the year, business magnate and resident richest man on earth Elon Musk had $44 billion and a dream: to “democratize” speech. When we first reported on Musk’s Twitter buying spree in April, he had acquired around $2.9 billion worth of shares. Last October 27, he made good on his word after months of Netflix-grade drama and finally bought the rest of everyone’s beloved bird app.

It’s been an eventful two weeks so far. Racism, hate speech, and bullying have surged, and even LeBron James has spoken up. Mass layoffs ensued only for Twitter to say “sike” to dozens of them last Friday asking them to return. While its newly minted CEO has been busy cyberzapping fake Elons and other “upstarts” here and there by virtue of facing the consequences of his actions, the end of satire on Twitter as we know it has become the least of other people’s worries at the moment.

With Musk doling out blue check marks—the social media equivalent of a “trust me, I know what I’m talking about” guarantee—to anyone who can afford it, those who can’t will most likely be buried by the Twitter algorithm. It’s “a revenue stream to reward content creators” according to Musk, but to the scientists and health professionals of #ScienceTwitter and #MedTwitter, it could mean trouble.

Of blue checks and balances

Since COVID-19’s outbreak, Twitter has been one of the key players in ensuring public safety by “helping people find reliable information.” The World Health Organization had acknowledged Twitter’s role in fighting misleading and false information through the pandemic—something Musk himself is guilty of spreading right from the start. 

If the spokespeople responsible for providing the public with real-time information on COVID-19 can’t pay $8 a month for a Twitter Blue subscription, their accounts stay unverified and will receive significantly less engagement on their tweets. This can limit the spread of timely and potentially lifesaving information on the app.

The way Twitter has worked all these years has always allowed for the instant exchange of ideas between a user and anyone who can see their tweets. And while Musk has promised to champion free speech with his acquisition, his actions so far have only proven otherwise. With that in mind, what would happen to any expert who may openly challenge Musk or his alignments in the near future? Would they risk getting cyberzapped too?

And what of fraudsters looking to gain more ground with a verified account? If all the fake Elons and this fake Donald Trump I found this morning have taught me anything valuable, it’s that some people can use a blue check for two purposes: One, to make people laugh; Two, to make people fall for anything.

For (not-fired) developers, it’s a way to raise the cost of spamming. “No solution to identity [verification] is perfect,” tweeted Yoel Roth, Head of Safety and Integrity on the app. While $8 a month is not impossible to overcome for more “sophisticated” fraudsters, “it’s hard to do at scale.” 

New platforms on the horizon

This isn’t to say that everyone with a medical or doctorate degree and years of credible work experience has already left Twitter. The community is still active and running as of writing. However,  it’s already starting to feel like “the end of an era” to some—as tweeted by Dr. Angela Christine Weyand, a Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Arghavan Salles, a verified user, already reported less engagement on her tweets. Earlier on, a number of scientists and health professionals had announced plans of moving to other social media platforms such as Mastodon and Discord only two days after Musk closed the deal.

Founded in 2016, Mastodon in particular has gained the approval of experts for being a non-profit, open-source, and community-based platform—the way progressive science should be. There are more tutorials on how to switch over now too. 

Let’s not forget Bluesky either. The decentralized social network protocol by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and other former site executives is currently running beta tests. This sets the precedent for a much different social media landscape that we’ve yet to see for ourselves.

The great social media shift

The fact of the matter is, mass migrations from platforms don’t happen overnight. As someone who had moved from Multiply to Tumblr, then Tumblr to Twitter in my teen years (eventful by their own right), I can attest that it was mostly dictated by easier use, and where most of my friends happened to be. 

Since then, I’ve stayed on Twitter for most of my years on the internet. Personally, it’s been the best place for staying updated on the latest news and learning about niche topics like, say, 20th century philosophy in five minutes or less. 

It’s given birth to a number of unique yet welcome social media phenomena over the past two years too. As much as “tweetfics” have kept us entertained during quarantine, we can’t forget the valuable and uniquely Twitter-esque contributions of these users either.

But if health and science experts find it easier to spread vital information elsewhere in the near future—whether it’s Mastodon, Bluesky, or a platform that’s still a code in someone’s mind—then so be it. Badly put, change is the only constant thing in life.