Elon Musk should take over Twitter, shut it down and fire the social media giant into space

Noted spaceman Elon Musk has been flittering around Twitter, scaring the bitcoins out of many who wonder what a billionaire oddball and self-declared “free speech absolutist” might do to a social media platform already overrun by racists, misogynists, Nazi wannabes and bigots of all stripes.

First, Musk bought a 9% stake in the company. Then it seemed he would join Twitter’s board. Late Sunday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced the Tesla founder would not be joining the board, which could – and I stress “could,” as Musk and certainty don’t mix – mean he wants to buy the company outright, an option given his immense wealth.

As a Twitter user and, apparently, a complete hypocrite, I have a request for Mr. Musk: Please buy Twitter, put it on one of your rockets and fire it into the sun.

Twitter is a 'hive of scum and villainy'

Most regular Twitter users recognize the site as the digital equivalent of Mos Eisley, the spaceport in “Star Wars” that prompted Obi-Wan Kenobi to say: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

It’s that rarest of spaces where you can publish the words “Aren’t puppies adorable?” and have someone respond, “No, you pedophile idiot, I hope you die!!! #QAnon.”

More from columnist Rex Huppke:

►Marjorie Taylor Greene and others throw 'pedophile' around with ease. Stop it.

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I joined Twitter in February 2009 and gradually built a following that now stands at a little more than 90,000 users. I send tweets almost reflexively and have no intention of stopping. I have met and befriended some wonderful and hilarious people through Twitter. And I am still begging Musk to buy the social media company, give all its employees nice jobs at Tesla, then take Twitter’s servers and algorithms and whatnot and blast them out into the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

We need someone to do this.

Twitter is like a giant bowl of ice cream. I know I shouldn’t eat it. I know it’s bad for me and eating it will give me a fleeting rush followed by waves of regret. But if it’s in front of me, spoon or not, it’s going down the hatch.

Twitter's bad far outweighs the good

For all the good that can come from connectedness and having the chance to hear other voices and perspectives, there's little evidence the good on Twitter even comes close to outweighing the bad. Because the bad is truly, frightfully, horribly bad. We’re talking “Hitler was right” bad. Death threat bad. The current trend of every right-wing knucklehead with a Twitter account calling anyone who supports LGBTQ rights “a groomer” bad.

A 'gay' dog got dumped at a shelter. I wish that were the most troubling LGBTQ news.

A 2020 article in the BBC’s Science Focus magazine that focused on Twitter's ability to make people angry read: “The trouble with non-stop access to social media and news outlets is that our boundaries, identities and values can be assaulted whenever we look at our phones, turning all of us into tinder boxes.”

The article quoted psychotherapist Aaron Balick saying people are “chronically wound up” and noting the uselessness of hollering back and forth at each other online: “To just shout out into the streets, ‘I hate it when people poke me,’ triggering other people to say, ‘I hate it when they poke me too!’ is not particularly productive. It doesn’t go anywhere, it just spreads.”

'Heightened risk of online abuse'

Research on Twitter abuse by Amnesty International USA found that “40 percent of women who use the platform more than once a day report experiencing abuse.”

Michael Kleinman, the group’s director of technology and human rights, said in a December statement: “Despite our repeated calls to improve their platform, Twitter is still falling short on its promises to protect users at heightened risk of online abuse. For a company whose mission is to ‘give everyone the power to create and share ideas instantly without barriers,’ it’s become abundantly clear that women and/or marginalized groups disproportionately face threats to their online safety.”

I am the last of the Obama Republicans. But I still have hope for lasting change.

This begs the question: Why are those of us who use Twitter doing this to ourselves?

My answer, sadly, is: I don’t know! I keep going back, and I think I might have a problem!

While Twitter does help me stay informed on up-to-the-second breaking news and has given me a platform to share jokes and other assorted nonsense, I’d guess the time devoted to tweeting would’ve been enough to write a couple books, learn how to mediate and possibly spend a few quiet moments each day not being told I’m “a radical leftist (expletive) who should be (expletive) in the (expletive) for my evil (expletive) (expletive) (expletive).” 

Musk too juvenile to do the right thing

But you can bet as soon as this column publishes, I’ll tweet the link out. And then I’ll tweet more stuff that same day. Because apparently I’m a shameless hypocrite with zero self control. Which, tragically, puts me in good company.

Humanitarian aid: My dad and I went to Poland and Ukraine to help refugees, including teens just like me

We Twitter addicts now find ourselves at the mercy of a rich dude who could buy the company and assert his free-speech absolutism in a way that takes something already awful and makes it measurably worse. 

Early Thursday, presumably after reading this column, Musk offered to buy Twitter outright for $54.20 a share, calling it his "best and final offer." He wrote that if his non-binding offer to take the company private isn't accepted, “I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.”

That sounds less like a serious offer and more like a publicity stunt. Last October, Musk sent this tweet: “Am thinking of starting new university: Texas Institute of Technology & Science.”

That’s a grown man making a sexist, middle-school-level acronym joke, folks.

Looks like we aren’t leaving Mos Eisley anytime soon.

Follow Paste BN columnist Rex Huppke on Twitter @RexHuppke and Facebook: facebook.com/RexIsAJerk/.