The Standard We Tweet Around is the Standard We Accept

X, formerly Twitter, once hailed as the Internet's town square, has become a distorted mirror of that ideal under Elon Musk's reign. But was this ever an apt descriptor in the first place?

We wouldn't silently pass by someone shouting racist or sexist abuse in a physical town square, Twitter twists our natural instinct to confront bigotry against us. Algorithms turn our outrage into engagement and engagement into amplification. Every tweet denouncing hatred inadvertently fuels its spread. Every well-meaning reply becomes another boost to …