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Elon’s Blue Period

Marshall McLuhan famously said the medium was the message. Turns out he was only scratching the surface: social media is the message, and maybe it shouldn’t be.

In defending his new pay-for-verification scheme, Twitter C.E.O. Elon Musk offered some absurd First Amendment-baiting pablum.
In defending his new pay-for-verification scheme, Twitter C.E.O. Elon Musk offered some absurd First Amendment-baiting pablum. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Baratunde Thurston
April 2, 2023

It’s been five long months since Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, and in that time a handful of moments have seemed to capture the demise of the service. The cruel and unusual firings. The API shutdown. The advertiser exodus. The service’s technical instability. The algorithmic gerrymandering, implemented to assuage the new owner’s ego by ensuring we all see his tweets. This weekend, the next phase of Twitter’s never-ending ending began: the removal of verified badges that were doled out during the pre-Elon era. (In another Elon-esque hallmark of dysfunction, the promised revocation hadn’t taken hold as of publication.)