Industrial-strength responsibility, or: what Twitter and travel have in common
Whether protecting natural resources or freedom of speech, individuals must act responsibly, but more of the burden falls to industry — and even more to governments to regulate appropriately
Chances are, even if you’ve never been much of a “bird app” (that’s ‘Extremely Online’ slang for Twitter) user, it’s been impossible to avoid the Twitter problem over the past few weeks. Since Elon Musk completed his acquisition at the end of October, seismic changes have rolled out faster than you can say “trending topic,” and each of them have had the potential for consequential aftershocks — both in terms of current practices and in terms of the precedent these changes set.
I’ve been interviewed about my take on it all, as have many of my friends and colleagues in the tech punditry space (is that what I am now? a pundit?) and as you’d expect, we all seem to have some overlapping and some differing opinions on where Twitter is headed and what responsibility Musk should have, if any, for preserving the platform. But that’s not exactly what I’m writing here about.
What I wanted to take a moment to note is more of a very personal level of phenomenology. Throughout this debacle, there has been a quirk to the timing — it has so perfectly coincided with the heaviest season of my travel. Ask anyone who delivers keynotes at conferences for any part of their living and they will tell you: the September to November timeframe can often be busier than the rest of the year combined. It’s #ConferenceSeason. #SpeakerLife.
I was boarding a plane when I saw breaking news that Musk planned to go through with his acquisition. By the time I landed, it was official. I’ve conducted interviews about it while waiting in airport lounges. Just by the particular quirks of my life and the way this story has unfolded, the Twitter deal has, for me, been inextricable from travel.
“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”
― Anita Desai
In the past two weeks, I have been in five countries — and have crossed seven international borders. I have challenged myself to use bits and pieces of five languages other than English (fun fact: I’ve studied over 20 languages! but I can only order the next round of drinks in a few), and have had locals patiently accept my halting attempts at communicating in their language with grace.
The juxtaposition of Twitter and travel has been informative for me in several ways. As I think about the implications of ‘free speech’ and content moderation, I am crossing international boundaries where freedom of speech is not assured.
As I consider access and connectedness in the digital space, I ponder what it means to be able to access and connect across physical space.
And of course, I can’t help but relate the journey back to Twitter — perhaps because, since 2007, it has been such a constant companion throughout my travels; Twitter has facilitated so many meetups, so many friendships, so many business opportunities, so much learning.
Twitter has facilitated so many meetups, so many friendships, so many business opportunities, so much learning.
Moreover, even as I travel, I know that this kind of travel is not a sustainable practice. It is not sustainable for everyone in the world to travel this way, and I realize it is not fair for a privileged few to be able to use the world’s carbon “budget” up so quickly. We need better mechanisms for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of travel. I use meaningfully integrative offset programs like Wren and Goodwings, but offsets can only go so far. There is a backlog of trees to be planted, and there likely always will be. The airline industry in particular needs major eco-innovation around fuel, and we need to demand it. And governments need to ensure that it happens.
Because as important as sustainable living is to me (and it has been critically important for most of my adult life, reinforcing my commitment to practices like preferencing secondhand shopping for clothes and furnishings, adhering to a vegan diet for 24 years now, reducing unnecessary purchases, and more) I just don't want our world to be one that people can't explore. Exposure to other places and cultures changes us in ways this world needs more of. As Mark Twain said,
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
An awfully similar thing could be said for the kinds of connections it has been possible to make across a platform like Twitter.
For different but intersecting reasons, the Musk approach to Twitter is not sustainable either. We need smarter, more genuinely equitable ways of managing our public conversations, and we have to demand them both from industry and from government. We have to advocate for transparency and accountability when it comes to content moderation. We need tools for equity and justice, not false equivalencies and fear. As my Twitter-friend Kim Crayton often says, "tech is not neutral." Technologies reflect the prejudices and privileges of the people designing and leading them. They can ultimately be wielded as weapons or used as tools — and you already know that I think we should always strive, whenever and wherever possible, toward making them a force for good.
As I wrap it up to catch my next flight, I’ll close with an excerpt of what I wrote in A Future So Bright:
“…while individual choices aren’t likely to make dramatic differences, there is interesting psychology wrapped up in how making sustainable choices on an individual level keeps us grounded in the mindset of what needs to change.
“While it isn’t all a straight line from using a reusable coffee cup to remembering to call your elected officials, studies do connect some ‘positive spillover’ from one desirable habit to the next. Some of the findings in this space come from a longitudinal study IKEA conducted around the consumer sustainability journey following the launch of its Live Lagom line (which means ‘the right amount’ in Swedish). What they found was that even with a small purchase, like an LED light bulb, people tended to carry that behavior and mindset forward and began to make other related changes, such as wearing warmer clothing to reduce heating energy.
“What’s more, it seems that those positive spillover effects can be maximized (and negative spillover effects, whereby people reduce their subsequent commitment, can be lessened) through experience strategy and interaction design; companies and institutions can instigate desirable behaviors in their audiences and populations and nudge those behaviors ahead.
“And for those businesses we define as ‘tech businesses’ especially, not only is the public watching, but so are the eyes of history. As a crisis of democracy unfolds in the US alongside a deadly pandemic, we come face-to-face with issues of misinformation and disinformation, of content moderation and platform access, and the consequences of the algorithmic blinders we all wear as we consume social media and our preferred news outlets. Each of these issues comes tangled in its own technical details around trust and truth, but in every case, there is one central truth: The need to frame these debates and their outcomes not around those individuals with the largest reach but around the rights and the future of humanity at large couldn’t be more urgent.”
Kate O’Neill is widely known as the Tech Humanist. She is a speaker, author, researcher, entrepreneur, and advocate for a meaningful future for humanity amid data and technology-driven changes at scale. She is founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to improving human experience at scale.