Seth Abramson

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@fredbag100 See my pinned tweet — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

I watched pained as someone I respect, Mark Ruffalo, tried publicly to reason with Elon. Mark’s heart was in the right place. But there’s no changing Elon; the world convinced him—with money and fame and much else—that he’s infallible. He’s destroying Twitter, and he won’t stop. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

Just as I and tens of millions of others knew from the start that Trump would never be anything but what he is—adults (especially wealthy ones) do not suddenly do soul-searching and change—Musk is the turd he is and nothing else. He will not change, or reflect, or reverse course. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

Twitter has been home for years. I’d be devastated to leave (see my pinned tweet). But the ship is sinking (see below). A deranged billionaire bought the site to kill it, and he’s doing so with ruthless efficiency. Everyone is left hunting for new options. https://t.co/5jyfkZoKE3 — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@AS88005532 We don’t have a choice. Elon will get what in his heart he always wanted: the destruction of America’s political water cooler. I don’t have billions of dollars; I can’t stop him. But he’s making this space unusable. Have you seen this? The ship is sinking. https://t.co/5jyfkZoKE3 — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@steve_vladeck @AshaRangappa_ Not for long. https://t.co/3W058PPBtb — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@SamMaloneChamp They have it out on ioS—we’re just awaiting Android. I have had arguments with Hamish about certain elements of Substack—I always speak up when I think something is going down the wrong path—but the company has *really* impressed me the last 6 months. They’re innovating. A *lot*. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(If you’re wondering what I mean when I refer to the PROOF “community”—some folks are less Substack-savvy, understandably—I mean that in just 18 months PROOF has developed a community of *70,000* free subscribers, and it’s growing daily. So a lot of folks are over there already.) — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(Substack recently rolled out a chat function that I’ll try to start using as soon as it drops on Android. That’ll give us an even better ability to form a community at PROOF than already occurs in the fairly active comment fields. I believe the Android rollout will arrive soon.) — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(Obviously you can sign up now to be a paid PROOF subscriber with full access to the site, I just figured that with… https://t.co/b8Bc8HOzb3 — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(📢) A MESSAGE TO FOLLOWERS OF THIS FEED: Hi, everyone! I want to say that now would be a good time to sign up as a *free* subscriber to PROOF, where I expect I’ll be more regularly going forward. (You can decide later if you want to be a paid subscriber.) https://t.co/npT4m0nZLs — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@michellerosser1 {drum riff} — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

I assume everyone realizes there’ll be an Academy Award-winning movie about the collapse of Twitter, right? Like The Social Network but in reverse? NYT: “Twitter, whose communication department has been laid off, did not respond to a request for comment.” https://t.co/470XTHAM56 — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

Yes—Substack has rolled out a chat function that I will turn on as soon as it drops for Android. It has already dropped for ioS and it is pretty amazing. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@TheRealRoya_ I have an account there and so far I am really *not* liking Mastodon. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS3) Just to flesh this out: unless Elon course-corrects *very* quickly, PROOF will probably become a site with daily short-form content as well as long-form content, more like the great Substack run by Heather Cox Richardson. Twitter seems headed toward “pure hellscape” status. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS2) I’m deciding what to do. It’s possible all my content—even daily content—will end up at PROOF. I’m not going to stick around here having my face spit in by a site I helped raise untold ad revenue for that I never saw a cent of. Substack is my likely long-term landing-place. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

(PS) Well, I was wrong. I admit it. I believed Elon Musk would be a rational actor, as I figured no one could amass that much wealth being a puerile, corrupt, addled-brained turdstick without half a lick of common sense. But Musk is just an alt-right troll with cash. That’s all. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

BREAKING: Elon to Kill All Identity-Verified, Public-Figure Badges, Leaving Twitter With Only Non-Identity-Verified, $8/Month Anonymous Users Impersonating Celebrities; It Turns Out a Billionaire Alt-Rightist Really Did Buy Twitter for $44 Billion Just to Own the Libs and Kill It https://t.co/tijKf8UFvS — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

This thread is one of the wildest rides I have ever been on — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

Twitter only recovers from what Elon is doing to it if he takes a big step back, stops tweeting, and lets a competent professional takes the reins. It’s that simple. The question is whether he deliberately lives in a bubble in which no one says boo to him. https://t.co/khiime9VeV — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

Just saw a CNN report on the resignation of the Twitter CISO and the pending FTC concerns at Twitter and it struck me that Elon being directly involved in operations on a day-to-day basis is a fever that must break eventually—even soon. He *must* find someone competent to be CEO. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

It is 2022 and he unironically begins a sentence with, “Ladies...” This is a person who is on television — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

Jesse Watters is the present participle “cringing” made flesh — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: (🚨) If you voted in CO-03, read this: — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: America owes a debt of gratitude it can never repay to Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), @RepElaineLuria, who courageously served… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

@amy_m_kg @TripTLFantastic I do understand. I remember how I felt when I didn’t have a badge. And that is very much why I think the use of the badge to denote public figures should be dramatically expanded. But it should come with identity verification and a basis for public notability, however esoteric. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

IAC, I was discussing with a friend today how long Elon will create needless havoc here before he lets things settle down and the site become as usable once again as it always has been. I said 3 months. My friend—who knows even more about digital culture than me—said much longer. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

The message Elon is sending is that the work people did which led to them being verified under the old system is *enormously* valuable... ...*so* valuable that he wants to make sure it’s indistinguishable from a mere willingness to pay him $8/month without identity verification. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

The last thing I’ll say is that the people Elon has declared war on have made the company he owns billions of dollars via content creation. On the one hand he’s vaguely promising monetization way down the line; in the moment he’s spitting in their faces. How does that make sense? — PolitiTweet.org