Why I left Twitter – It’s no longer trustworthy
As founding editor of Modern Health Talk, I was once a fan of Twitter, but no more. Elon Musk corrupted it and turned it into his own private social media network, much like Donald Trump did with TruthSocial. They are both able to control the algorithms governing what posts are seen by the most people. And they can dominate conversations with their large numbers of followers — Musk has 184 million followers, and Trump has 87 million on X and another 7 million on TruthSocial.
I remain active on Facebook, both personally and through the Modern Health Talk discussion group, but I now rarely post on Twitter/X. For my purposes, I consider it dead. I have kept my personal hashtag (@waynecaswell) and business hashtag (@mhealthtalk), but they now sit idle. I no longer follow news posts there. They no longer seem trustworthy. Besides, I agree with Robert Reich that Elon Musk, and Twitter/X, has become a national security threat and goes against my vision of universal healthcare.
Is Musk’s control of X just the beginning?
Musk has been using X to influence election outcomes in his favor, turning up the volume and frequency of his anti-Biden rants. He has been relentlessly attacking the president for everything from his age to his policies on immigration and health. Last month, Musk posted on X that Biden “obviously barely knows what’s going on” and that “He is just a tragic front for a far left political machine.” Like so much on social media, these shallow personal opinions have no factual basis but lots of influence.
Dangerous anti-democracy coalition
According to Robert Reich, Musk shows a willingness to tip the political scales toward authoritarian leaders around the world — not just toward Trump but also toward Javier Milei, president of Argentina; Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil; and Narendra Modi of India.
In India, he has secured lower import tariffs for Tesla vehicles. In Brazil, he has opened a major new market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service. In Argentina, he has solidified access to lithium, the mineral most crucial to Tesla’s batteries. Leaders of these authoritarian nations have already been using social media to influence U.S. elections and attack democracy. That, of course, includes China and Russia.
Political corruption and extreme wealth
Musk is an extreme example — worth $8.4 billion in 2014 and now $222.9 billion in 2024 — but there are others. Something deeper seems to be going on. The billionaires and multinational corporations appear more loyal to one another and their profit motive than they are to any nation-state. Reich describes them as moving away from democracy in favor of authoritarian rule. But it’s also because of extraordinarily high returns they get from investments in political influence. The 2018 Trump tax cuts, for example, gave the Koch brothers an ROI of over 1,500% from their political spending. That’s greater than almost any other investment a company can make, and it comes with dangerous consequences.
Like pharmaceuticals and health insurance, 75% of American industries have consolidated in the last few decades. That includes oil & gas, shipping & airlines, meat & poultry processing, baby diapers & formula, broadband & news media, and even soda. Such consolidation gives these companies monopoly power over purchasing, pricing. Their fear of antitrust enforcement from a second Biden administration is influencing corporate behavior.
In the case of healthcare alone, I can imagine our first trillion dollar election. That potential seems justified if only to avoid healthcare reforms that bring us in line with other wealthy nations. Sadly, many other industries have similar incentives, because of CEO compensation plans and the legal and fiduciary duty they have to serve the investment interests of shareholders above all else.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wayne Caswell is the Founding Editor of Modern Health Talk, an altruistic website and blog with hundreds of published articles on healthcare policy, technologies, and solutions for independent living. It started in March 2011 as a nonprofit effort to share the unique perspectives of a retired IBM technologist, market strategist, digital home consultant, futurist, and consumer advocate.
The header on this website shows a group of social media icons. The one for Twitter now links to this article instead of sending readers to X.
WHY OTHERS LEFT: (just a few found online):
From Elizabeth Tai: Things keep changing at Twitter. As of this writing, Twitter has banned people from posting links to competing social media channels such as Facebook, Mastodon and even linktree. This came mere days after he banned prominent US journalists. It’s been mad over there. And it’s no longer the platform I’ve come to enjoy.
From Paul Holmes: (on LinkedIn) Obviously, it has become much more toxic in the months since Elon Musk took over and set out to boost racism and anti-Semitism and homophobia and misogyny to new levels. At the same time Twitter has become a platform for where disinformation is promoted and legitimate journalism is undermined.
From BlueQueen: I’ve been closely following Elon for months. I was kicked off twitter personally by him for being too honest. I told him he didn’t have the qualifications to speak in his indoctrination videos on the *woke mind virus* and that causing communism in America. He’s been pushing this concept for a while now. He boosts Trump’s Truth social tweets and also pushes obvious Russian propaganda. Clandestine is the big Russian propaganda account and it’s always about the left being woke and the downfall of America. I used to push back on these tweets and I’m very knowledgeable about what is truth and what is BS. Everything Elon elevates is 100% BS. Other than wokeness he talks about Biden’s immigration “failures,” having more babies, and racist remarks all day long. I have 1000’s of screenshots of real Nazis and antisemitism. He’s also in charge of Starlink and I am 100% certain he was helping Putin on the day the Ukrainians were ready to take out Russian Black Fleet. Very odd how it lost signal at that exact moment. I digress. My point is that he’s a huge national security risk and a definitive threat to all of us. His disinformation machine is humming on twitter. He has talked about the failing mainstream media and sowing fear of wrong information in the wrong direction. He’s manipulating the trends to what suits his political agenda. He’s a danger. Twitter is a danger. Why haven’t our intelligence agencies investigated him yet? Thiel too. Both are shady AF.
FINALLY — There are many good reasons for leaving Twitter. For me, it just lost all journalistic integrity, or usefulness promoting my own articles. For Robert Reich, Elon Musk and X became a national security risk.