Since its launch last year, the Clubhouse social media app, exclusive to guests, has received a lot of noise. Social media has been around for so long that everything old is new again and, unlike other apps that encourage users to share broken links or thoughts in exchange for “likes”, Clubhouse facilitates voice conversations using your phone. Basically, you can choose a topic and host your own discussion panel with friends. If you’re lucky, join a conversation and share your ideas with names like Elon Musk or any other famous and influential user of the site.
However, I regret to inform you that an increasing number of journalists are deeply concerned about the Clubhouse’s growing popularity. Why? It seems that the Clubhouse does not accommodate its interior Big Brother.
At the GritDaily, an online publication calling itself “the main source of news about the Millennial and Gen Z brands – fashion, technology, influencers, entrepreneurship and life”, editor Olivia Smith pointed to the new app in a story in late January. Her main complaint was that she heard “an alarming amount of casual sexism”. Readers have to take her word for it, which was the point of their criticism – and the point, in a way, of the application itself.
“At the Clubhouse,” Smith wrote, “There are no screenshots. There is no way to drag out old Clubhouse posts years later, as a user would on Twitter. There is no way to record conversations – which means there is no way to prove that someone said something controversial. There is no way for responsibility. Clubhouse users know, or at least believe, that they can speak openly what they think, without repercussions. “
Smith also said that in a conversation she overheard, “a moderator was actively spreading misinformation” about the COVID vaccine and an African doctor who opposed her was “intimidated” to leave the conversation.
This article generated a follow-up on the Poynter Institute website – the journalism foundation that launched PolitiFact – by a prominent Poynter editor. On February 11, the item entitled “A fact checker at the Clubhouse,” Cristina Tardáguila of Poynter, approvingly cited Olivia Smith’s concerns about the lack of a written record at the Clubhouse and added one of her own. “The lack of these resources will certainly produce barriers for fact-checkers. Not only will it be difficult to choose which club to join, but the Clubhouse also requires fact-checkers to listen for hours and hours of conversations before selecting which statements to evaluate. ”
For those old enough to remember when unregistered conversations about culture and politics were normal, the more preferable to the hellish social media scene we have today, this attitude is shocking. Increasingly, social media’s “path to accountability” is to get random people fired from their jobs and made national objects of contempt for a single intemperate or misinterpreted observation that may not be representative of a lifetime of behavior. Those who seek this path towards social justice seem oblivious to the most frightening aspect of their behavior: they are unconsciously imitating the behavior of tyrants and totalitarian regimes everywhere. Or, sometimes, consciously: Here is the setback for Cristina Tardáguila Ask for Poynter: “With the myriad of other platforms that fact-checkers are forced to face, would it be better for them to ignore the Clubhouse for now? … After a rare moment of cross-border dialogue between users from mainland China and others outside the country, Chinese censors came on the scene. If Xi Jinping’s management isn’t ignoring the Clubhouse, why should fact-checkers do it? Why should you? “
New York Times technology reporter Taylor Lorenz also put the Clubhouse in his sights, with instructive results.
Earlier this month, Lorenz jumped on Twitter and accused the legendary venture capitalist Marc Andreessen of using the word “retarded” in the Clubhouse in a derogatory way and regretted that “no one else has criticized him”. In the end, Andreessen was not the speaker who used that word, and it was not used as a “slander”, as stated by Lorenz. It came up in reference to a name that the online community “Wall Street Bets” (recently on the news for muddying the stock market) had given itself.
Once upon a time, an accusation so irresponsible that it would yield a reporter’s time in the penalty area. Instead, Lorenz had the chance to co-author a highly critical Times article on the app, noting that it “fights harassment, misinformation and privacy issues”. All of this may be true – but how does this make the Clubhouse different, say, from Facebook or Twitter, which journalists happily use on a daily basis?
And it was the journalists who led the charge to deplete the right-wing Parler social media app after the United States Capitol rebellion last month, although subsequent prosecution documents and other evidence show that the vast majority of planning for the insurrection was done on Facebook. Perhaps one reason there has been no serious move to deplore Facebook is that Mark Zuckerberg’s giant provides a huge revenue stream for publications that pay the salaries of our perpetually objectionable journalists. These are the types of conflicts of interest that reporters in a more benign economic environment already felt free to explore.
Instead, it seems that the Clubhouse’s real problem is allowing people to have real conversations. The New York Times’ official Twitter account announced Lorenz’s story of noting that “unrestricted conversations are taking place at the Clubhouse, an invitation-only app that allows people to gather in audio chat rooms … despite struggling with concerns about harassment, misinformation and privacy ”. Although the Times was probably not using “unrestricted” in the literal sense – after seeing journalists praising Xi Jinping’s approach to freedom of expression, it is difficult to say – it is revealing to note that shackles are chains used to prevent people from escaping.
If the medium is the message, the Clubhouse is at least trying to control some measure of humanity, fostering real person-to-person dialogue. This should not be considered threatening. Yes, it is true that spontaneous, unmoderated human interaction can have bad results – but likewise, meaningful conversations are also powerful enough to change minds and touch hearts. Good luck doing this with Twitter’s 280 character limit.
Instead of running around trying to eradicate wrong thinking like a bunch of Orwellian truffle pigs, journalists from places like Poynter and The New York Times considered how they can use their own platforms to bring people together? To promote real involvement in a deeply politicized and polarized country, where could we all make a greater effort to see the humanity of those with whom we disagree?
In the end, it is easier to build consensus around true and unifying messages than to suppress all marginal voices that may be wrong. The standard message that unmonitored conversation between reasonable people is a threat will only take those who are spreading really harmful ideas into the dark, encrypted corners of the Internet.
It is better to remain skeptical about social media and all its forms, but for now, what is happening at the still nascent Clubhouse is clearing a barrier as it is more promising than other social media platforms. Elon Musk recently asked Vladimir Putin to have a conversation with him at the Clubhouse, and the Kremlin said the request is being considered. There is always a chance that this conversation will end badly, but if you are concerned about hostilities on social media, it is much more likely that World War III will start on Twitter and be planned on Facebook.