Freefall ...

In Newtonian physics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. In the context of general relativity, where gravitation is reduced to a space-time curvature, a body in free fall has no force acting on it.

Definition ...

free fall

noun

1

: the condition of unrestrained motion in a gravitational field

: the part of a parachute jump before the parachute opens

b

: a rapid and continuing drop or decline

a free fall in stock prices

Or ...

A rapid and continuing drop or decline of Elon Musk

To whit ...

We’re witnessing the brain death of Twitter

An analysis of Musk’s tweets shows him at the center of conversations once kept on the fringes of Twitter.

People don’t die in an instant. Death is, instead, a process of shutting down. You stop breathing; your organs stop working, bit by bit. Your brain ceases to function. Brain death is permanent, but your heart can still keep beating on its own for a time.

The state of Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover feels like this sort of brain death: the processes that keep it online are somehow still beating, but what Twitter was before Musk is never coming back.

On Monday, December 12, Twitter dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, a wide-ranging group of global civil rights advocates, academics, and experts who have advised the company since 2016. Meanwhile, Musk has welcomed back previously banned high-profile extremists like the white nationalist Patrick Casey. According to data compiled by researcher Travis Brown, others reinstated include Meninist, a “men’s rights” account with more than a million followers; Peter McCullough, a cardiologist who gained a large audience for advocating discredited covid-19 treatments and arguing against receiving the vaccine; and Tim Gionet, a far-right media personality who livestreamed his participation in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Musk’s enthusiasm for eliminating jobs, cutting costs, and undoing Twitter's safety infrastructure has caused advertisers to leave in droves. At one point, the company reportedly lost the business of half its top 100 advertising clients, and it has missed weekly US ad revenue expectations by as much as 80%. Musk’s behavior now poses difficult questions for the brands that remain. The company has stopped enforcing its policy on covid-19 misinformation.

In essence ...

MIT Technology Review ran an analysis in Hoaxy, a tool created by Indiana University to show how information spreads on Twitter by looking at both keyword frequency and interactions between individual accounts. The results hint at Musk’s new role in this network: as effectively a hall monitor for the far right.