What Would Elon’s Twitter Look Like?

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 572 Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It probably won't surprise you that Twitter's a bit of a mess right now. Last week, billionaire Elon Musk made a play to buy the whole company, stating that his goal was to turn it into a bastion for free speech absolutists. Regardless, Twitter is also in the process of undergoing some changes that are posed to shake up the platform, with or without Musk's involvement.

This week on Gadget Lab, we’re joined by Casey Newton, the journalist and writer of the Substack newsletter, Platformer. Casey comes on the show to talk all about Twitter, Elon, and the always controversial edit button.

Show Notes:

Read and subscribe to Casey’s newsletter Platformer. Here’s how Twitter’s edit button might actually work. Read more about what exactly Elon’s vision of truth means.

Recommendations:

Casey recommends the show Yellowjackets on Showtime. Lauren recommends Goodreads. Mike recommends simplifying your burgers (i.e., stop putting marshmallow Peeps on them).

Casey Newton can be found on Twitter @CaseyNewton. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Lauren.
0:00.8	Mike.
0:01.6	Lauren, how gadley do you want to edit your tweets? So by that, I think you mean how badly do I want to edit my tweets? Oh, yeah, okay. Let me, yeah, let me ask you that question again. How badly do you want to edit your tweets? Okay, is there a timestamp where I can go back and call up your former mistake if I need to when you said Gadley. That would be a good feature.
0:21.0	That would be a good feature.
0:22.2	I have to be totally honest.
0:23.3	I don't have super strong opinions on editing tweets because I don't think we should be able to edit tweets.
0:29.3	I'm with you on that one.
0:30.2	Really?
0:30.8	Yes, I am.
0:32.4	And we'll talk about that and much more on this week's show.
0:43.0	Hi, everyone.
0:44.0	Welcome to Gadget Lab.
0:45.0	I am Michael Collory.
0:46.4	I'm a senior editor at Wired.
0:47.5	And I'm Lauren Good.
0:48.9	I'm a senior writer at Wired.
0:55.7	We are also joined this week by journalist Casey Newton, who writes the platformer substack and covers all things related to social media, technology, and democracy.
0:59.5	Casey, welcome to the show.
1:00.9	Thanks so much for having me, y'all.
1:02.5	Of course.
1:03.2	Hey, neighbor.
1:06.2	We could not think of a better person to bring on this week because today we are talking
	...

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