As someone who leans to the left, I'll tell you why the apparent Tucker Carlson decision to come to Twitter and create a new show here has me at least a little bit hopeful. Please hear me out before criticism:
- The biggest gripe I had with Tucker's show was that he pushed theories over fact, and implied things which were not always true, bordering on lies sometimes.
- If Twitter is able to integrate a live version of Community Notes for his broadcasts, his embellishments, theories and implied narratives can be fact-checked by the community in real time. Additionally, the real time tweet stream would also act as pushback to any inaccurate information.
- The alternative to a Tucker/Twitter team-up would have been the possibility of him going to a far-right media organization like a Newsmax or OAN, and possibly taking a conspiracy-laden, far-right agenda into the mainstream.
My hope, and I very well could be wrong, is that Twitter makes Tucker more moderate and the community here, both right and left use whatever new tools Twitter could offer to call him out when he drifts too far into far-fetched conspiracy theory territory.
I'm an optimist and I hope that I'm right. The alternative would likely be quite bad for Carlson, Twitter and America.
Thoughts?
As someone who leans to the left, I'll tell you why the apparent Tucker Carlson decision to come to Twitter and create a new show here has me at least a little bit hopeful. Please hear me out before criticism:
- The biggest gripe I had with Tucker's show was that he pushed theories over fact, and implied things which were not always true, bordering on lies sometimes.
- If Twitter is able to integrate a live version of Community Notes for his broadcasts, his embellishments, theories and implied narratives can be fact-checked by the community in real time. Additionally, the real time tweet stream would also act as pushback to any inaccurate information.
- The alternative to a Tucker/Twitter team-up would have been the possibility of him going to a far-right media organization like a Newsmax or OAN, and possibly taking a conspiracy-laden, far-right agenda into the mainstream.
My hope, and I very well could be wrong, is that Twitter makes Tucker more moderate and the community here, both right and left use whatever new tools Twitter could offer to call him out when he drifts too far into far-fetched conspiracy theory territory.
I'm an optimist and I hope that I'm right. The alternative would likely be quite bad for Carlson, Twitter and America.
Thoughts?