Media figures lament toxic Twitter
Media figures lament toxic Twitter
By ALI BRELAND - 07/19/18 06:00 AM EDT
High-profile journalists are saying they might leave
Twitter after tweets attacking them and family members.
The latest controversy is underscoring how the popular
social media platform has become toxic in the current political climate.
CNN reporter and commentator Chris Cillizza tweeted on
Sunday that he was “about done” with Twitter, after tweets mocking his child’s
peanut allergy.
“We are talking about a 9 year old. Feel free to hate me.
But don’t mock my son’s peanut allergy. Classless and indefensible,” Cillizza
wrote.
MSNBC Anchor Chuck Todd also offered support to Cillizza
and criticized the abuse.
“Every time I think Twitter can’t get worse, it
does. You people are awful. Leave the
man’s family alone. Disgusting,” he tweeted.
Cillizza has remained on Twitter since the episode, but
another prominent reporter has said she is taking a break from the social media
platform.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted on Monday
that with the exception of sharing breaking news and her own stories, she would
be stepping back from Twitter.
“No reason or prompt other than that it’s not really
helping the discourse,” she explained.
Haberman’s not the only high-profile journalist to do so
in recent months.
New York Times Magazine writer and Vice News Tonight
correspondent Jay Caspian Kang, who was an active Twitter user, deactivated his
account last month, without explanation.
In March, an Intercept journalist with a larger
following, Lee Fang, also decided to leave, writing that Twitter is “unhealthy
for many reasons.”
In 2017, New York Times political columnist Bret Stephens
also said he was done with the platform in a column calling Twitter “the
political pornography of our time” and claiming it was “debasing to its users.”
Stephens has kept his account but scaled back
interactions. The account appears to only share his columns and other Times
content, and in his column, he said he was handing it off to an assistant.
Matt Fuller, a congressional reporter for HuffPost, said
he hasn’t considered quitting but has taken breaks in the past.
“Twitter is increasingly a little toxic because everyone
is aggrieved, and everyone seems to think they have a right to not be aggrieved,”
he said. Fuller has found himself on the receiving end of abusive campaigns
from trolls.
Other journalists on Twitter have frequently raised
concerns about the harassment directed at women and minority journalists.
Twitter attacks on journalists are not a new phenomenon.
Journalists criticized by President Trump for their
coverage regularly find their Twitter mentions overrun by his supporters, often
using insulting language and sometimes crossing into personal attacks.
Other high-profile figures, such as Elon Musk, have also
at times directed disparaging tweets at reporters.
Alan Rosenblatt, director of digital research at the
left-leaning opinion firm Lake Research Partners, blamed Trump’s attacks for
encouraging harassment of journalists on Twitter.
“Trump’s tweets and his own language offline has set the
precedent and enabled people to come out of the woodwork and be more harassing
and more mean-spirited than they otherwise would have been,” Rosenblatt said.
But he cautioned reporters against leaving. Every time
the platform loses a respected voice, he said, it amplifies negative voices.
“If a reporter who is reporting the truth steps back from
the conversation they are basically ceding the argument to the naysayers,”
Rosenblatt said. “The naysayers are relentless though and will stay there
anyway.”
Critics say abusive attacks aren’t just a problem for
journalists. They say such experiences on Twitter are common for a wide range
of users and blame the company for failing to take steps to police the platform
and crack down on abusive behavior.
Actress Leslie Jones and British Member of Parliament
Jess Phillips, among others, quit Twitter after personal attacks.
Twitter says it’s aware of the problem and trying to
improve the “health” of its platform.
In March, Twitter launched an initiative aimed at taking
down abusive and harassing tweets and reducing spam. It has also worked on
improving algorithms to detect abusive or hateful speech.
Recently, the company booted millions of bots and fake accounts
from its platform.
The efforts are an improvement, but rampant harassment is
still prevalent on Twitter.
There are also larger questions about the repercussions
for journalism if prominent reporters leave Twitter.
For many journalists, Twitter is a near-essential tool.
Reporters have used it to build reputations and followings. They use it to
promote and do their work. Twitter makes it easier to catch breaking news, find
new sources and has become essential for covering Trump, who regularly makes
news with his tweets.
Journalists can make an impact on the platform, quickly
spreading news in some cases to hundreds of thousands of followers.
“Twitter can certainly add weight to your reporting.
There are definitely some members [of Congress] who only give me the time of
day because they’re afraid that not doing so might elicit a tweet,” Fuller
said.
Twitter also faces risks if a large number of
journalists, who are heavy users of the platform, disengage. Twitter has long
struggled to build up its user base and engagement, before seeing gains in
recent months.
Still, it would take a tremendous exodus to significantly
hurt the company.
Recent high-profile departures haven’t radically changed
the platform much and there other large communities and prominent figures
outside of media who use Twitter regularly.
For all the debate among journalists on whether to quit,
few actually have.
But many journalists now find themselves with a tough
choice.
The Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has said he would
encourage young writers to stay off the platform but has said he knows walking
away is hard.
“Every day I wake up and hope I have the courage to
leave, and I think someday soon I’ll get it,” he said in an interview with Vox in
2016.
Coates left Twitter one year later, after a contentious
public debate with academic Cornel West.
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