So I posted a bit on Twitter about going dark there for the foreseeable future. I said that it's not all about Musk's changes, and that's true.

But it's also not NOT about them.

The decision to bring Trump back was a big motivator for me to get off the train. But not for the reasons you might think. 1/

Whatever I think about Trump, his politics, Jan 6 — I have opinions, everybody has opinions, I wrote a book if you want to read it — is not really the point here. It’s what the decision to me says about what the business model of Twitter is.

Twitter works as a business, if it does, by engaging you. And often, it engages you by inciting emotion. Largely negative emotions. Anxiety, anger, FOMO, outrage, contempt, glee. 2/

Inviting Trump back is an effort to get in business with the site’s main inciter. It will make people mad, and other people gleeful, even if he never tweets again, and that gets them engaged. And if he does start tweeting again, well, the old engagement machine is back in business. 3/

People will tweet about the tweets, and reply to them, and QT to dunk on them or to crow over them. Because Twitter has gotten them to decide that they are soldiers in a daily war over the discourse, lobbing little word grenades of righteousness. They are OBLIGATED, in their minds, not to cede the field, or else the wrong people win.

But every word grenade, every reply and dunk and crow, will make a little cash register ring. 4/

Even before getting Trump back, Elon himself has taken on the role of the site’s main character, creating chaos, inciting the crowd, fueling a battle between the fanboys and haters.

I mean, he may also mean all his shit about free speech and the public square. I’m not a mind reader. 5/