X or Twitter?

I am reading an article by Joan Westenberg, called “The Biggest Tech Scandals in Politics”.

It is a nice article, and I will finish reading it, but couldn’t resist but react to this sentence from the article:

Few tools have redefined political discourse like Twitter. And no, I’m not going to call it X while I still have a functioning brain cell.

Before we begin, let me say that I dislike Elon Musk wholeheartedly, and do not agree with his actions related to anything.

However..

Insisting on calling “X” as “Twitter”, in my opinion, is giving too much credit to the website.

Sure, it had a big impact on political discourse, literally changed the way of reading flash-news, and all these great stuff. But at the end of the day, it is just another website, owned by some selfish billionaire, ran for profit. And to me, all these mean that the owner can do whatever they want with the website.

It is like asking for a toy from an envious kid when we were young. And after multiple rejections, continuing to ask again and again. But no! You don’t want to make the envious kid see that they have your favourite toy. Instead, you stop asking, go play with other toys, and then they have no more motivation to not drop the toy.

This is very true, especially in Elon’s case. You absolutely don’t want to make him think that his website is irreplaceable. And by insisting on it’s old name, we subconsciously give him the power he is hungry for.

Disclaimer: I absolutely do agree with the “keeping companies responsible for their actions” sentence. But the name.. I don’t believe it is that crucial.

What do you think? Let me know.

P.S.: I just discovered Joan’s website, and it is a hidden(?) gem. You should totally go check his articles.