From The Atlantic.
What is Twitter’s legacy? In this episode of “Galaxy Brain,” Charlie Warzel traces how Twitter, now called X, evolved from a status-update tool to one of the most culturally and politically influential—and contentious—platforms of the modern internet. Charlie is joined by early Twitter executive Jason Goldman. They explore how Twitter’s core features—many invented by users—reshaped media and politics while also enabling new forms of harassment, misinformation, and attention hijacking. Goldman reflects candidly on the company’s key inflection points—from early free-speech-maximalist decisions and underinvestment in trust and safety to Twitter’s role in events like the Arab Spring and the election of Donald Trump. The discussion culminates in Twitter’s Elon Musk era, where its logic of attention has been weaponized more explicitly. The episode reckons with what Goldman and others ultimately built: a tool with outsize cultural influence that’s broken brains and amplified some of society’s worst impulses.
This episode of Galaxy Brain was produced by Renee Klahr and engineered by Dave Grein. Our theme is by Rob Smierciak. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
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00:00 Introduction
03:30 Jason Goldman Joins
06:10 From Google to Twitter
10:21 Twitter’s Early Days
14:36 Twitter’s Gets Political
17:13 Free Speech Roots
22:05 What Made Twitter Special
26:17 Twitter’s Original Sin
31:05 Fired From Twitter
34:46 Trump and The Attention Economy
38:41 Musk Takeover
45:28 Why Won’t Twitter Die
48:16 Legacy and Cultural Reckoning
54:24 Conclusion
