Opinion: To tweet or not to tweet, now that Elon Musk is Twitter’s boss

My plan was to dither. I find that if I plan to dither, the chances are high I’ll follow through.

Last week, while the World’s Richest Man, Elon Musk, now Twitter’s owner and overlord, was lying in wait to seize the company, the question before a noisy swath of the platform’s 400 million users had become: Should I stay or should I go?

That’s where the dithering came in. I couldn’t decide, so I decided to not decide.

Musk had dithered too. Like a klutzy pickup artist, he courted Twitter and then snubbed it and then proposed marriage, all while proclaiming his contempt for all it stands for.

When he finally did close the deal for $44 billion Thursday, he instantly fired several key executives and acted like Twitter was his destiny. But for months there was no telling if he’d really close.

There’s still no telling if he’ll stick with it, if it will hold his scattered attention.

Will he actually follow through on his reckless fantasies of firing up to 75% of the staff, dropping content moderation, opening up the platform to election and COVID and Holocaust deniers, and reinstating Donald Trump, who was banned from Twitter on Jan. 6, 2021, for inciting violence?

What a short, strange trip it’s been. Just five months ago, on April 5, a securities filing revealed that Musk had become Twitter’s largest shareholder. That very day, Twitter’s then-Chief Executive, Parag Agrawal, asked Musk to join the board.

On Wednesday, he christened himself Chief Twit, and on Thursday the deal was done.

Even as I have weighed the pros and cons of my own Twitter participation, I figure the key is scanning the horizon for a vibe switch.

If the right-wing bellowers fill the Twitter halls with hyena laughter, if the door is opened to 4chan-caliber filth, if black mold chokes the place, it’s hard to imagine staying around.

Musk tweeted “the bird is freed” on Thursday to celebrate his purchase — or perhaps to cover his buyer’s remorse. I had already downloaded my tweet history, packed my go-bag. Later in the day, I wasn’t the only tweeter wondering: What next?

Some are proposing a return to nature. (As if!) Others suggest Instagram. Neither, I have to admit, is suited to my Twitter purpose, which has been — sentimentally enough — to learn. I’m with the Yale historian Joanne Freeman who tweeted Thursday: “I would be sad not to have this venue for discussing history and politics!”

For now, a lot of people appear to be heading for the Twitter exits even without a solid alternative. And even before Musk took over.

Last week, Reuters acquired an internal research document from Twitter called “Where Did the Tweeters Go?” which revealed that, since the start of the pandemic, power users, who generate half of global revenue and 90% of all tweets, have been in “absolute decline.”

Big accounts — @justinbieber, @ladygaga — now post infrequently and in a pro forma style. And tweets that push cryptocurrency and porn are the platform’s fastest-growing topics among heavy users on English-language Twitter.

I issued a Twitter poll last month. When Musk arrives, I asked, will you (a) leave (b) stay (c) dither (d) fake leave? With some 450 replies, “leave” came in second and “dither” came in first.

It’s the only way. Until the vibe shift is clear, I’m giving in to my Clash-like confusion: If I go there will be trouble. And if I stay it will be double.

Virginia Heffernan is a columnist for Wired magazine and the author of “Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art.” ©2022 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.