California’s most reluctant resident was in the news this week for all the worst reasons.
First, his website was one of the top purveyors of misinformation and conspiracy in the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. Next, he reminded everyone how lacking our campaign finance laws are in this country when he promised over $45 million every month to a political action committee to bolster Trump’s re-election campaign. Yesterday, he announced that he is uprooting the staffing for his website and his space rocket company from California to Texas because of a new law that requires school districts to not tell parents what gender a student wishes to be identified with in the classroom.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg for the many awful things Elon Musk has done over the years. Knowing all of this, the Streetsblog team in California sometimes gets asked, “Why do you still use Twitter/X?” As I understand it, the logic goes that by using this website we are giving a tacit endorsement to his values.
At the staff level, we discussed whether or not to abandon Twitter/X after Musk took over. We’ve set up accounts on Post, Blue Sky, Mastodon and other potential competitors, but the reality is that at least so far, nothing else has attracted the audience that Twitter/X still provides, even if that audience is shrunk and our content often appears next to ads for Trump branded shot glasses.
Even in its diminished state, the site still has uses. In addition to providing a way for us to advertise our work, it also allows for two-way communication with our readers. Some of our best leads have come from Twitter/X (both public tweets and anonymous DM’s). Twitter/X is also the most effective social media platform for live-tweeting meetings.
Knowing all of this, our board of directors still wanted to make a statement to make it clear that as an organization we don’t want usage of a social media platform to imply an endorsement of the values of the people who own it. That isn’t just true for Twitter, we also use Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to name a few. The Board crafted a brief statement that you might see appear in other places on our sites, but I thought I’d share it with you now.
California Streets Initiative’s use of social media is not an endorsement of the company that owns the site or the views of its owner.
Streetsblog Los Angeles, Streetsblog San Francisco, Streetsblog California, LongBeachize and Santa Monica Next editors use whatever social media sources make the most sense to them to reach as broad an audience as possible.
Thank you so much for your time. If you have any thoughts you’d like to share with me, just drop me a line at damien@streetsblog.org.
Damien Newton is the executive director of the California Streets Initiative, the nonprofit that publishes Streetsblog Los Angeles, Streetsblog California, Streetsblog San Francisco, Santa Monica Next and LongBeachize.
