Science Twitter Needs a New Home

tech.hindustantimes.com:

I will miss science Twitter.

It's hard to overstate the influence of the social network on science during the Covid pandemic — and the pandemic's influence on science Twitter. A rich community of researchers and science journalists existed there before Covid, but seemed to expand exponentially during the early months of the pandemic.

Twitter became an invaluable tool for finding, sharing and debating emerging science on the virus. Researchers made connections and collaborations through the platform, posted data nearly in real time, and often explained those findings (and their limitations) in lay terms so that journalists and the general public could understand them.

Of course, there were downsides. Healthy debate could be misinterpreted by the public as uncertainty rather than a natural part of the scientific progress. Follower counts could be conflated with expertise, amplifying hot takes that served to make people either overly anxious or overly blasé about the disease.

Then there was the in-fighting. By year three, science Twitter had gone from being largely united against a common enemy — Covid — to being divided over the right response to that enemy. What was once useful public vetting of information became instead an opportunity for each faction to reaffirm their particular pet position. Nuanced discussion was lost. Some arguments escalated into verbal abuse. And yet, the optimist in me felt certain that if a new virus emerged, science Twitter would get its act together.

That optimism evaporated following Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. Even if the last two months of chaos turn out to be a momentary wrinkle, I can't imagine the community will ever operate like it once did. Agents of misinformation and