The billionaire is killing a social media platform for environmentalists

What has the Elon Musk left behind? The landscape of science communication and diversity in the 2022-2022 epoch of social media

A survey conducted by Nature suggests that Jarochowska, now at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, is far from alone in curtailing her use of the platform. Since entrepreneur Elon Musk took control in October 2022, he has made a series of largely unpopular changes to Twitter, including cutting down on content moderation; ditching its ‘blue-check’ verification system in favour of one that grants paying members additional clout and privileges; charging money for access to data for research; limiting the number of tweets users can see; and abruptly changing the platform’s name and familiar logo to simply ‘X’. His management has left scientists reconsidering the value of X, and many seem to be leaving.

The proliferation of platforms has created a fragmented landscape for science communication and community, says Inger Mewburn, an education and technology researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra. The main advantage of using the service was that it allowed researchers to obtain specific information. “People would just go to that hashtag and they’d see everyone who was talking about a very particular interest,” she says. Now, researchers need to hop from application to application following specific communities and individuals. It is difficult to know where people are hanging out.

Mark Carrigan, a digital sociologist at the Manchester Institute for Education, UK argues that the idea that social media created a space where academic celebrities flourished was simplistic. Even when it helped to diversify science, he says, it did so through the reinforcement of the same kinds of hierarchy. He wrote that rewards flow to those who are known, valued and heard, while those who are unknown, unvalued and unheard are struggling to increase their standing.

Žiga Malek, an environmental scientist at the Free University of Amsterdam, mentioned in the survey that he had started seeing a lot of “strange” political far-right accounts espousing science denialism and racism in his feed. He has to block them constantly. He said that the social media site was a mess and that it had always been not so nice.

Researchers found that Musk’s claims of a decrease in hate speech were not true. Musk has threatened to sue at least one group studying these trends.

A lot of experts and specialists are leaving the platform, says Timothy Caulfield, a law scholar and science communicator at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. If there is a massive echo chamber, will we just allow it to spread misinformation in a way that is very harmful to society?

Why is Mastodon still relevant? Scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty in the light of Nature’s survey

Mastodon, which has been around for some seven years, has a smaller user base than other social-media platforms. In Nature’s survey, LinkedIn was the second most popular place for respondents to open new accounts, and Instagram, owned by Meta, was third. Meta had started Threads a few days before the survey was to start. It reportedly attracted 100 million users in its first five days, and was the fourth-most-popular platform among survey respondents, with about 1,000 people saying that they had joined (See ‘Signs of dissatisfaction’).

Some researchers are trying to stick around. Malek says that, for the time being, he will continue using X to promote his work; he published a paper on land degradation in Asia in July and he’s working on another one about livestock grazing in Europe that he also hopes to promote through X. Some of the people that he follows have left and he doesn’t know how long he will continue.

There is no consensus on the future of X. Musk stated in July that the company is running on a Negative Cash Flow due to losing 50% of its advertisement revenue. A lawsuit accuses the company of owe US$500 million in benefits to former employees.

Source: Thousands of scientists are cutting back on Twitter, seeding angst and uncertainty

Climate Scientists Aren’t Here, but Environmental Researchers Are Interested in Learning More from the Social Change of Twitter over the Last Two Months

The platform closed its free access to its platform in February but the change didn’t come into effect until June. Research on misinformation,disaster responses and social dynamics on the Internet has been halted or hampered since then. Costas, and Dudek don’t have free access to new data to further their research on how users engage with science. They need to rely on the information from previous analyses. “There’s still so many things that I would like to do,” Dudek says.

They worry that the changes will stop their collaborations with other scientists in the field. Costas says the framework for sharing data was created by the way academics were able to access Twitter. Now, someone who pays to access X data will not be able to share it with others to do complementary research or replicate findings unless the other team also pays, he says.

It’s probably worth poking around to see where former members of Environmental Twitter have wound up, Chang and her co-authors write. Environmental advocates might even want to launch some kind of campaign to migrate people to a new platform of their choice, the paper says, “so that there are continued opportunities for information exchange, mobilization, and research.”

Musk’s leadership may affect climate discourse and research on the platform. Before he took the wheel, Twitter was an important tool for environmental researchers and activists alike.

“To my loyal followers, I can no longer remain active here,” Peter Gleick, a climate scientist and water expert with 98,400 followers on X, said in a pinned tweet thread from May. “I’ll only post new material on Mastodon, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other platforms that may develop over time that offer opportunities to communicate and interact with justice, respect, and ethical perspectives now utterly abandoned here,” he says.

After it got a reply from X, The Insider said, “We’ll get back to you soon.” The line has become a typical response to reporters, replacing a poop emoji that was a standard reply for months after Musk’s takeover.