Live from the Self-Made Gehenna That Is Twitter: Matt Bruenig is a very smart man. When not on Twitter, Matt Bruenig is almost always very much worth reading. When on Twitter--that wretched hive of scum and villainy--not so much:
: The Great Matt Bruenig-Neera Tanden Kerfuffle Sort of Explained: "Lefty gadfly Matt Bruenig got into a Twitter fight with Joan Walsh yesterday morning...
...It culminated with this from Bruenig: 'I have a daughter too. Your pathetic ageism against young people (remember taunting them as 'barely shaven') is sickening to me.' About then, CAP president Neera Tanden weighed in with a light comment defending Walsh, which prompted this follow-up from Bruenig:
It's fun when the geriatrics who worked to starve my mother of cash assistance get going https://t.co/ugXi9qH7lx
@neeratanden @joanwalsh Scumbag Neera uses welfare when she needs it then takes away from others when they need it. Disgusting.
Tanden is—and has been for a long time—a Hillary staffer and ally, so it's not unreasonable to suspect that she might have supported welfare reform in the 90s. But Tanden denies ever having supported it, which is believable on its face since (a) her family used welfare when she was growing up, and (b) she was in law school at the time welfare reform was being debated.... Bruenig's tweets were nasty, apparently unfounded, and a bit two-faced (charging Walsh with 'ageism' followed by insulting Tanden as 'geriatric'). So what happened next?... OK, so what happened next? Bruenig works for Demos... which got wind of his tweets and immediately apologized.... This afternoon Demos fired him:
Today, we are taking a harder look at how our staff, fellows and independent contractors engage on social media—and unfortunately, we are finding that we have not met our own standards of vigilance to ensure that nobody associated with Demos is crossing an important line.
After our tweet apologizing for Matt’s personal attacks including the term ‘scumbag,’ we received emails from multiple individuals who made it clear that we were not aware of the extent to which Matt has been at the center of controversies surrounding online harassment of people with whom he disagrees.
It was evidence of a pattern of behavior that is far out of line with our code of conduct. After multiple conversations, Matt Bruenig and Demos have agreed to disagree on the value of the attack mode on Twitter. We part ways on the effectiveness of these kinds of personalized, online fights and so we are parting ways as colleagues today. And just as we did with Matt three years ago when he first joined our blog, Demos will continue to find and amplify the voices of lesser-known progressive policy commentators to make for a more inclusive public sphere....
So which was it? Was Bruenig fired for offending the great and good, or was he fired for being a jerk? It's hard to say, isn't it?...
Actually, I don't think it is hard to say. Demos considered-as-a-hivemind was nervous about Matt's Twitter persona beforehand, but his inane rantings against somebody famous enough to attract a spotlight to him--and Demos--brought forward a decision that would otherwise have been kicked down the road a while longer.
Kevin continues:
Bruenig... apparently... declined to just apologize and move on.... declined to rein in his behavior. If you assume that Demos is telling this straight, it's hard to see how they could hold onto him.... The risk of having an employee like this go completely ballistic at some point and write something either libelous or just plain repellent is too great...
And : "One of the better e-mails I've sent in my lifetime, I would think:
And Arthur Delany:
Has anyone tried ignoring Twitter? It's wonderful. If something momentous happens there other people will tell you. It's amazing to me how people started caring more and more about Twitter even as everyone realized comments sections are cesspools. Twitter is just a giant comments section...
And me:
IMHO, Twitter is fine as long as you:
- instantly and permanently block anyone whose tweets even slightly annoys you
Then it becomes useful and informative. "An echo chamber?" You ask? Kinda. But not really.
It's good for passing along links, for notifying people of your work, for occasional twitter essays, and for rare conversations among people in fundamental agreement.
Otherwise it is, basically, what Arthur Delany says: not a place to be on the internet, unless you have dumped enough chlorine into it to kill whatever memes you find toxic--and unless you are unwilling to add to the flood of toxic memes yourself.
