The Internet Is Having Its Midlife Crisis

The jokes and memes about Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase as proof of a massive midlife crisis are at least partly on point. The internet, for one, is having its own midlife crisis. And as with any midlife crisis, the internet can spiral into the abyss, continuing its own self-destructive pathway, or we can seize the moment to build a better internet founded on the essential principle that the internet belongs to all of us. Twitter isn’t just a platform. It’s how some of us live, work, and survive. Many have long argued that Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms are public utilities—they provide an essential service to the public by enabling the flow of communication that supports communities, commerce, and access to critical information. The fact that one of the world’s wealthiest men can buy Twitter and screw it up has prompted an epiphany for many of its most loyal devotees: activists, journalists, politicians, and yes, trolls. We need to reshape the internet to support this public spirit—or at least refashion a small slice of it. But that requires grappling with questions that have vexed decades of internet policy thinkers; namely, who foots the bill and who sets the rules of engagement? The government needs to provide regulatory guidance to prevent the worst excesses of capitalist egress and abuse, serving as a steward for the public. “New Twitter” could be a global communication platform owned and operated by a coalition of public service–minded stakeholders. But to keep Twitter, well, Twitter, it needs to retain some core properties and features of the platform that people have valued. Namely, the platform needs to be free, it needs to have scale, and for better or worse, it needs to be a place for free expression. Twitter would need to have a long leash, much like well-supported public broadcast providers in democracies across the globe that have remained at arm’s length from government censorship.

[Nikki Usher is an associate professor in communication at the University of San Diego and a senior fellow at the Open Markets Institute.]