By Jordan McDonald
Over the last month, Elon Musk has sat upon the throne at Twitter the same way you’d expect a child might run the country as Prime Minister.
He’s triggered a staff exodus, upset a large portion of the platform’s users, and been the subject of news headlines almost daily.
Many onlookers now wonder, what is the future like for Twitter?
While many users have condemned the platform to a seemingly inevitable death, I’m not sure people understand what we’d be losing.
Although it’s not the most popular platform, it’s become an incredible archive of world history, and narrated by its millions of users.
Losing this unique record of the world and its events, and how people engaged, would be a loss I’m not sure we should be wanting.
Twitter has been with us through a lot. Since its introduction in 2006 we’ve encountered events such as the global financial crisis, election cycles, the ongoing COVID pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Twitter has played a critical role in the spread of information during world altering events.
Granted, it’s also been the subject of the spread of misinformation and disinformation, which it has taken steps to prevent more strongly.
Regardless, Twitter has always been the place of breaking news.
It is an archive of media coverage and genuine human reaction to the world’s doings.
Historians will be able to analyse what we’ve shared to the platform and learn.
Culture, community and human rights movements are all core components of the Twitter experience.
The #MeToo era received widespread awareness thanks to the viral power of #MeToo trending on Twitter.
More recently #RIPTwitter was the number one trending topic which became the catalyst for this blog.
The power of movements like #MeToo highlights the importance of community on Twitter.
We participate in social media for the fundamental purpose of engaging with our chosen communities.
For some people, online communities are daily interaction they rely on for work, leisure or personal wellbeing.
Communities have been the catalysts for online or internet culture.
Twitter was hugely influential in the creation of meme culture, or more recently the ‘crypto’ (cryptocurrency) culture, following the notoriety gained by WallStreetBets.
Twitter has helped shape so much of the internet world we operate in daily.
Perhaps the most controversial loss if Twitter were to crumble would be the uncensored speech.
While there are some limitations to what you can post, compared to its competition, Twitter allows the most unfiltered social interactions of any platform.
A glance at Elon Musk’s Twitter profile is a shining example of how unfiltered some people want to be. And that accessibility to tweet directly at someone of public importance is unique in itself.
Twitter promotes itself as the digital town square where its users can congregate and discuss whatever they like without fear of being censored.
This is something the platform is working to remind users following the disabling of former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account (which has since been reinstated).
While some might argue that unfiltered speech on social media is dangerous, I argue that preventing people from discussing topics however they like is far more dangerous.
The alternatives to Twitter strongly protect its users from anything offensive or potentially harmful and serve a filtered reality.
Twitter remains a relevant platform to 5.8 million Australians.
It is the sixth most used social media platform in the country behind rivals the likes of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and WhatsApp.
While reports of Elon’s leadership seem to indicate the beginning of the end for the platform, Australians feel optimistic.
According to research by insight research company Toluna, most Australians won’t be impacted by Elon owning Twitter.
Instead, seven per cent said they would use the platform more with 10 per cent saying Elon would improve Twitter’s performance.
Social media has endured a significant period of damaged public trust brought on by the privacy breaches at Facebook.
It’s not often we can see research which tell us that people are willing to come back to social media and trust again.
Twitter is certainly not the platform for everyone.
However, it has stood the test of time and been the platform for emerging news, world events and the birth of new culture.
Although Twitter’s future seems uncertain, and Elon does little to reassure us, I trust that Twitter is here to stay.
To lose the platform would be a tremendous loss of invaluable information and I don’t think we should be wishing to see its death.