Barack Obama posting on X doesn’t make X good.
I spent about 16 years selling podcast ads.
On occasion, especially during major election seasons, we’d talk about selling political ads on podcasts. The problem was that most podcast hosts didn’t want to voice political ads, for fear of alienating half their listeners. Most hosts didn’t even want to run pre-produced political ads that didn’t require them to say a word — they still didn’t want to piss off half their listeners, even the ones they didn’t agree with.
There were exceptions, of course. You could almost assuredly convince the hosts of Pod Save America to run an ad for, say, the Democratic presidential nominee.
But no political action committee or other group would ever consider such a spectacular waste of money. They don’t need to advertise on Pod Save America. You’re preaching to the choir.
The same would be true of running an ad for a Republican cause on the oxymoronically named Newsmax. If you want to persuade people who don’t already agree with you, you need to find those people.
(Political campaigns do spend money motivating their own supporters to vote, of course. But that’s a different objective from persuasion.)
Which brings me, yet again, to John Gruber and X.
John linked to a thoughtful essay by Barack Obama about the Trump administration’s shameful investigation and intimidation of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
Obama argues that a government targeting its political opponents should outrage every American, regardless of party affiliation. He’s right. It’s a good essay, making an important point.
John agrees. But then he uses Obama’s decision to post that essay on X as another opportunity to mock people who think participating on X is bad.
John sarcastically suggests that because Obama posted on X, the people who’ve been criticizing John’s renewed embrace of the platform must now believe Obama is a Nazi sympathizer, a fascist, a pedophile, and a racist.
He concludes:
Either that, or, Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon have relegated themselves into irrelevance by allowing their discourse to be dominated by a fringe of unhinged kooks who want to be angry and want everyone else to be angry.
I think that’s a lousy argument.
First, if someone genuinely believes that merely posting on X makes you a Nazi or a pedophile, that’s a ridiculous position. I don’t subscribe to it. I never have. And it certainly isn’t the argument I’ve made in either of my previous pieces about this.
But John’s taking the most extreme reactions he can find and presenting them as representative of everyone who objects to X. It’s an easy argument to win when you get to pick the stupidest possible version of the opposing position.
The reality is that Barack Obama has a very good reason to post on X.
He’s trying to reach people who don’t already agree with him. And he’s not engaging in conversation.
Obama doesn’t need to convince people on Mastodon and Bluesky that Donald Trump’s politically motivated investigation of Ilhan Omar is awful. Those people overwhelmingly already agree with him.
He doesn’t need to convince the hosts of Pod Save America, either.
But X has an enormous audience, including millions of people who support Trump, tolerate his behavior, or simply haven’t spent much time thinking about the implications of a president using the federal government to intimidate political opponents.
Those are precisely the people Obama needs to reach.
I don’t applaud Obama for continuing to post on X. I wish he didn’t have to. I think he doesn’t have to. I think he shouldn’t. But I absolutely understand the calculation.
And here’s the more important distinction: Obama is using X to broadcast, not to socialize.
He’s not logging in to enjoy the clever discourse, engage in thoughtful dialogue, and chat with his friends. He’s not there because he’s found a wonderful community of people who share his interests.
He’s publishing a statement intended to reach as many people as possible. I doubt he’s spending his afternoon reading replies from Nazis, jerks, and basement dwellers, much less engaging them in spirited debate. He doesn’t give a shit what they have to say.
That’s a very different use of X from the one John has been defending.
John’s argument, as I understand it, is that X is where lots of interesting things are happening, and that if you carefully curate your feed, there’s plenty of great content to enjoy. He’s found that the platform can be fun again.
I don’t doubt him! I miss Twitter, too. I miss the conversations, the jokes, the interesting people, and the stuff I discovered there.
And John knows this. John isn’t stupid.
Over the past week or so, I’ve heard from many people whom I know John values, trusts, and respects. They’ve told me how disappointed they are in his loud and public embrace of X. Several have told me they’ve reached out to him privately to explain their disappointment, and that he remains obstinate and determined to stay put. His latest post shows his intent to continue promoting the platform.
John’s friends aren’t unhinged kooks who just want to be angry. I guarantee if you’re reading this, there’s a chance you read their posts, or listen to their podcasts, or at least value their insights. They’re thoughtful people who care about John, and who wish he’d reconsider.
People can post wherever they want to post. I’m not trying to dictate where John spends his time online. My disappointment isn’t merely that he’s returned to X. It’s his seeming refusal to acknowledge that much of the community on X is genuinely awful, and that his personal experience of the platform is not representative of everyone’s.
In his first piece about returning to X, John wrote:
The culture on X today is remarkably friendly and inclusive. It is a cheerful place.
That’s a remarkable thing to say about a platform whose owner routinely amplifies hateful rhetoric about minorities.
I’m glad John’s feed is cheerful. I’m glad he’s found a way to enjoy X without having to see much of the hate. But the fact that John doesn’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
As I wrote previously, John, like me, is white, male, cis, straight, and rich. There are certain advantages that come with those attributes, including the ability to avoid a lot of the ugliness that other people encounter simply by existing online.
What’s been especially disappointing is John’s repeated failure to meaningfully acknowledge the experiences of people who don’t share those advantages. When Black people, trans people, women, and other marginalized groups talk about the harassment and hatred they experience on X, that’s not evidence that they’re looking for reasons to be angry. It’s evidence that their experience is different from his.
John doesn’t need to abandon X because I think he should. But he could at least acknowledge that his experience isn’t universal, and that the people who have been hurt by the platform aren’t simply imagining it.
There’s an enormous difference between saying “X is a cheerful place for me” and “X is a cheerful place.”
John keeps insisting on the latter. That’s a blind spot. It’s deeply disappointing. It rings of Trump’s defenders who say he’s joking when he spouts insane hateful stuff, but that he’s otherwise good, you know, don’t worry.
But as I’ve written before, X’s product is attention. Every person who posts interesting things there makes the platform more valuable. Every person who comes back because the interesting people are there helps reinforce X’s position as the place everyone needs to be.
And that helps Elon Musk, who uses his platform to amplify hateful, racist, antisemitic, and transphobic rhetoric.
Obama posting on X contributes to that same problem. I’m not pretending otherwise. But there’s a reasonable argument that the potential benefits of his reaching persuadable Americans outweigh that cost. I’m not making that argument, but I hear it.
The argument that X is a fun place to chat and exchange ideas with cool people does not carry any similar weight.
The two decisions aren’t morally identical just because both involve opening the same website.
And none of this means everyone who uses X is a terrible person. I’ve never claimed that. There’s a difference between believing that a decision has harmful consequences and believing that everyone who makes that decision is irredeemably evil.
John is smart enough to understand that distinction, which makes it frustrating to see him repeatedly argue against a position that doesn’t require any actual engagement with the objection.
I’ve said before that I admire John. I still do. I think he’s a great writer, and I think he’s often right about things that other people miss.
But he’s wrong about this.
The fact that X remains a powerful way to reach people doesn’t mean it’s a good platform to support. In fact, its power is exactly what makes the question of supporting it so important.
Barack Obama using X to condemn government intimidation is not proof that X is a healthy, worthwhile social network.
It’s proof that sometimes you have to deliver your message somewhere you’d really rather not be.
X is still bad, though.