It also has a dark side. You can be inadvertently exposed to extreme points of view or content. Twitter has an algorithm that wants to keep you using twitter. The way these algorithms work – if you show an interest in bad content you will automatically be fed more. This can lead to people developing quite extreme viewpoints. You might be a little unhappy about something and you look for other people that are and you end up going down a rabbit hole where you start believing things that are demonstrably untrue. You follow people with similar views and it creates a bubble where everyone validates and reinforces their extreme beliefs. This is why you need some form of content moderation to prevent people being radicalized in the first place.

Following his recent purchase of twitter, Elon Musk has created a furore by sacking half the workforce, announcing that they will charge for verified status and talking about absolute free speech. These are all terrible ideas. Advertisers are already starting to drop the platform.

If twitter charges for verification, someone can for instance say “I’m Martin Lewis” and pay over their money. They can then use their new status as the UK’s most trusted money saving expert to flog dodgy get rich quick schemes on the internet. Martin Lewis is already constantly fighting to stop scammers using his name. For twitter to make this worse would be a bad thing.

But the really big one is free speech. I believed in free speech as a heady teenager back in my early days on the internet. But experience has taught me over and over again that absolute free speech does not work. You need to have rules and you need to enforce the rules. If twitter abandons these rules it will become a wasteland of hatred and extremism. Ordinary people will be driven away.

But the whole thing raises a wider issue. Who should own social media? After all Twitter is made by the people that use it. Should an individual be allowed to own it and use it as their personal plaything? Should even a corporation be allowed that much control over people, their data and their communications. Should a government? Many twitter users are migrating to Mastodon, which is a network of servers, run by enthusiasts and volunteers, putting the power back in the hands of the people. Each server has their own rules, but if you don’t like those rules you can join another server or start your own. The main rule though is “Be Nice” Maybe this could be the future. If you’d like to join me on there you can find me at @ztulloch@mstdn.social

As a small software development company, Covid-19 doesn’t have a great impact on us. Computer programmers have naturally been practising social distancing for years! It’s an occupation that requires intense concentration with hours spent staring at obscure looking computer code. A lot of the kinds of technology that people may be using for the first time to allow them to work remotely, programmers have been using for a long time. So if you need any advice on the technology side of things do get in touch.

We have had to temporarily put up shutters on some of our clients’ websites and we can only earnestly hope that they can make it through this crisis. These are strange times.

With a potential drop off in new work, it would be a good idea to look at some of the in house software projects that we have had sitting on the backburner and to take the opportunity to skill up our team.

Stay safe and remember to keep washing those hands!