Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. F.E. Guerra-Pujol's avatar

    Apropos of Sagar’s wish to foist the A.I. industry by its own petard, this article appeared in print in yesterday’s…

  2. Claudio's avatar

    I teach both large courses, like Jurisprudence and Critical Legal Thinking (a.k.a Legal Argumentation), and small seminar-based courses at Edinburgh…

  3. Charles Pigden's avatar

    Surely there is an answer to the problem of AI cheating which averts the existential threat. . It’s not great,…

  4. Mark's avatar

    I’d like to pose a question. Let’s be pessimistic for the moment, and assume AI *does* destroy the university, at…

  5. A in the UK's avatar
  6. Jonathan Turner's avatar

    I agree with all of this. The threat is really that stark. The only solution is indeed in-class essay exams,…

  7. Craig Duncan's avatar

Boston University School of Public Health suspending its Twitter accounts

Brian Leiter

They give a thoughtful explanation for why they are doing so here.  Curious to hear from readers about what they are thinking about Twitter, now that the absurd and venal Elon Musk is at the helm.  To be clear, if someone wants to defend the rectitude and moral character of Mr. Musk, please take that to Twitter.  This is for readers who find Musk an appalling personage with a venal political agenda:   how does that affect your thinking about the use of Twitter?   Do take a look at the BUSPH statement before commenting please.

(Thanks to Dr. David Ozonoff for the pointer.)

Leave a Reply to A Sharon Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

8 responses to “Boston University School of Public Health suspending its Twitter accounts”

  1. wb

    I do not tweet; I use Twitter to find and consume news and news analysis. For these purposes it still seems to be the best platform, and I won't be leaving until the users I follow (primarily news organizations but also working journalists and academics) leave for something better.

    If I had a large following and tweeted frequently, the BUSPH statement would be persuasive. Institutional users, particularly those with large followings, have to consider whether their presence lends an aura of legitimacy to Elon Musk, whose intentions appear malevolent.

    Reply
  2. Peter

    I have sympathy for boycotting twitter because of the persona of its new owner, but twitter has always been very selective in the enforcement of its rules and "deboosting" political voices is outright dangerous. There is rumor that Musk does the same to certain individual accounts that criticise him. Of course that is wrong, but if it is just individual accounts who annoy him personally instead of long lists of accounts with a certain political bent, then the change of ownership is a net plus.

    That said, I doubt that a megalomaniac like Musk is content with just banning individual accounts. His behaviour towards the real inventors of the Tesla cars shows how vindictive he can be. Let us hope that he does not feel threatened by diverging opinions that do not concern his persona.

    Reply
  3. A Sharon

    Not all tweeters are the same. I think there are two categories of tweeters facing the hardest decision. The first category includes any organization with a substantial public presence. Everything from universities, businesses, government, etc. These are the places, before twitter, that had an official web site as their primary online portal. BU's https://www.bu.edu for example. Of course, a consumer had to go to the site. Twitter allowed institutions to push their messaging to millions of people very easily. It will take a lot of twitter dysfunction to get those institutions to quit twitter.

    The next category are individuals with a career that includes a prominent public presence. The number of followers, retweets (especially who does the retweeting) is part of the job. The network of verified tweeters push each other's content. Many of these folks are Musk's most severe critics because he is putting them in a terrible dilemma. I'm sure a good deal of anxiety is caused by the fact the place they can best express their discontent is on twitter.

    A quick anecdote. Leiter Reports is a blog I look at every day. Another blog that I look at every day is pressthink.org, NYU Prof. Jay Rosen's blog which does for Journalism what this one does for Philosophy. A while back, Prof. Rosen started using twitter exclusively for posting comments and content. I have to go to his twitter feed now. I was happy that even though Prof. Leiter took to twitter he has kept Leiter Reports the same. Having to quit twitter would be a major hassle for him. He's staying the course but each inflammatory Musk tweet raises the ante.

    I am a content consumer, not a provider. I will continue to seek out the content I find interesting or important. If I was interested in hearing what the BU school of public health wanted to say I would seek it out whether they are on twitter or not.

    Reply
  4. Larry Franz

    It's irrelevant whether we post on Twitter or simply follow certain accounts. By visiting the site, we are donating our attention to Musk's company, thereby helping him sell advertising. Given the way he's operating the company, I think avoiding Twitter is the ethical thing to do. Yet I enjoy following certain people there; my leaving would have an infinitesimal effect on Twitter and Musk's finances; and sites like Mastodon and Post seem to be poor alternatives for now. This is the kind of situation that made me realize many years ago that I'm not as ethical as I thought I was.

    Reply
  5. Brock

    Lawblogger Ken White of Popehat is leaving Twitter as well. "The last straw was Elon Musk sending lunatics and bigots against former employees and leaning into conspiracy theories." https://popehat.substack.com/p/goodbye-twitter

    Reply
  6. Yes and

    It strikes me that BUSPH gets these issues just right. It is unfortunate that many philosophers are noting these ethical issues, but suggesting their own complete powerlessness when it comes to creating a better situation.

    Reply
  7. Rob

    The New York Times reported yesterday, "To cut costs, Twitter has not paid rent for its San Francisco headquarters or any of its global offices for weeks, three people close to the company said."

    From the same article: "In other money-saving moves, Twitter has laid off its kitchen staff and begun to list office supplies, industrial-grade kitchen equipment and electronics from its San Francisco office for auction."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/technology/elon-musk-twitter-shakeup.html

    There are ethical reasons related to content moderation to leave Twitter. There is also a narrowly practical reason. Does it really make sense to keep investing time and money into a platform run by a company that has recently laid off many of its workers, stopped paying rent, and put office supplies up for auction?

    Reply
  8. Boris Dagaev

    If this is true: “we do not in our community tolerate speech that is demeaning and non-rebuttable, dangerous, or factually false.” – how did they manage to tolerate being on Twitter before Musk when it was just as full of such speech as it is now?

    BL: This is a fair point, although there is more of this speech post-Musk, as various sources have documented.

    —–
    KEYWORDS:
    Primary Blog

    Reply

Designed with WordPress