John Naughton has a question…

…and he’s using his position at a major media outlet to ask it. I’m not as qualified as John apparently is to answer his question, but I’m going to take a stab at it anyway:

HOW

ABOUT

FUCKING

ANYWHERE ELSE,

JOHN?

I mean… where did they all go before Twitter was a thing? Twitter’s only been around since 2006, so only 17 years. There had to have been options before that, surely? Like, you know, the aforementioned major media outlet for whom you wrote this thing… or even Threads which you specifically name in the title, I don’t see anything stopping journalists and politicians from using that. Twitter isn’t the only option and never has been. John concludes:

All of which leads to the thought that, in our current media ecosystem, if Twitter had not been invented, someone would have to invent it now. The tweet has become the contemporary version of the soundbite. And if Musk does eventually succeed in driving Twitter into bankruptcy, some smart political operator will buy it and make something from its smoking ruins.

Oh bullshit. Other things were invented in the past, then OTHER THINGS were invented that superseded them. Just look at Myspace, for fuck’s sake. The latter still exists for some reason that I frankly don’t understand, and Twitter will probably do the same… it’s just not going to be the biggest of its kind, something else will take its place, with Threads certainly looking like the biggest contender. I do not understand Naughton’s insistence that Twitter specifically has to be, you know, it.