The Capitalist Case for Overhauling Twitter

We know it’s terrible for society. But it’s also a terribly run company. Illustration: Tyler Comrie Illustration: Tyler Comrie The political philosopher Hannah Arendt, analyzing the fall of democratic Germany to the Nazis, observed that totalitarianism comes to power through a “temporary alliance between the elite and the mob.” Seventy years ahead of her time, she couldn’t have articulated a more apt description of Twitter, Inc. The company has become a primary platform for just such an alliance: totalitarianism, but with stock options. The stock isn’t even worth that much, relatively speaking. On the day of Twitter’s initial public offering, in 2013, shares closed at $44.90. On January 28, they closed at $51.57. That’s an increase of about 1.9 percent per year — barely more than the rate of inflation. Facebook has nearly sextupled over that period. Even the New York Times Company, once thought doomed by the rise of social media, has almost quadrupled. As a business proposition, Twitter’s decade-long experiment in monetizing rage and disinformation has failed. A little over a year ago, I joined a chorus admonishing the company. “Algorithms that promote conspiracies and junk science, and inconsistent application of your terms of service, have resulted in…
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