How The Twitter Files Show That Clubhouse Was Big Tech's Canary In The Coal Mine

When Elon Musk began releasing the internal communications between Twitter employees and US government officials, it confirmed what many people already knew. It also debunked the claims by some that political censorship was just a conspiracy theory that wasn’t really happening. The evidence is so abundant and clear that there was simply no way to rationally deny it anymore.

The actions by Twitter employees in collaboration with US government officials is the direct result of a dangerous and toxic mindset that has infiltrated society where a tiny subset of the population dictates to everyone else which views are acceptable and which are not, and they feel entitled to use any means to enforce that on everyone else. They use a carrot and stick approach, by elevating those who are repeating their preferred talking points, and leveraging social media, boycotts, and in some cases, violence, to essentially remove from society the voice of anyone who disagrees. 

Welcome to cancel culture.

This isn’t an entirely new phenomenon, though. In fact, in some ways, it has existed in society since the beginning of time. There are countless examples of people being exiled from their communities throughout history, but social media has enabled fringe elements to organize from all over the country and weaponize social media, giving a small but extremely vocal group undue influence.

Haitham Amin, a trial attorney and a social media influencer in the legal space, said, “I can't post certain things. For example, certain words, phrases, and topics would trigger the algorithm to suppress my content. The community guidelines are often complicated, lengthy legal documents that no one ever reads, but you have to accept to create an account. In addition, I have the word "parody" in my bio. to make it clear that my videos are intended to be funny and NOT intended to serve as legal advice. And despite all of that, I still get people who are "offended" by my content or, even worse, report my content as a violation of the community standards. I feel paralyzed that I am unable to truly express myself because the canceled culture is standing ready to attack, similar to big brother in George Orwell's book, 1984. I have to obey the rules, or I can lose my account of 1+ MM followers.”

Big tech has transformed social media from a place where people used to be able to engage, share opinions, and debate ideas, into one dominated by totalitarian groupthink enforced by a small but vocal and aggressive group of thought police.

“Social media used to be a space for people to express themselves freely. Hate it or love it — it was accepted nonetheless. But, now, you're constantly under surveillance — any mistake, no matter how little, will result in you being ‘canceled,’ Amin explains.

While Twitter is in the spotlight right now, it’s not the first or the only company to engage in this kind of behavior. In fact, every social media platform today is doing the same thing, and I believe it will eventually destroy every company that does it. 

This is more than just a theory. 

We’ve already seen a once powerful, rising star of the social media world implode because of it. 

In 2020, a brand new social media platform erupted and was soon on track to be the next big thing. The audio-based app, Clubhouse, took off at the peak of the pandemic when people were starving for connection with others. But this also lined up with the peak of cancel culture. As a result, that mindset was ingrained in the platform from day one, which attracted the kind of people who eventually destroyed it. These were the same kind of people who almost destroyed Twitter. 

By December of that same year, Clubhouse went from being the hot new social media platform everyone wanted to be a part of, to a ghost town that hardly anyone uses. 

While some will say it’s still one of the top 20 social media apps, that claim is a bit deceiving because after the first few platforms, the drop off is pretty steep. For example, Twitter today has about 450 million active monthly users compared to Clubhouse’s paltry 10 million.

Real estate giant and one of the platform’s early adopters, Grant Cardone, commented on the activity, saying, “What happened to Clubhouse? There used to be 1,500-2,000 people in a room on a regular basis!” To contrast, you’d be hard pressed to find a room with more than a few dozen people, and many fail to even hit double digits in attendance. 

So how did a small subset of toxic users essentially destroy Clubhouse? And perhaps more importantly, what does this mean for other social media platforms today? 

When activity on Clubhouse began to skyrocket in early 2020, it attracted an influx of new users, and among them were some of the most vocal cancel culture activists. Almost immediately, they began attacking other users simply for not actively promoting the same viewpoints they held. They would routinely organize mass campaigns to prevent anyone they didn’t like from speaking in rooms, while also attacking their businesses and encouraging others to unfollow them. And the users who faced these attacks would often see their accounts suddenly lose visibility as well—all while the founders of the platform insisted nothing of the sort was going on. 

“When it first started, the rooms on Clubhouse were about ideas, collaboration, and support, but inside of 90 days, most rooms were about people—either in a self-promotional sense where people tried to convince others how important they were, or in a destructive sense where they tried to convince others to attack and ostracize people they didn’t agree with,” said one of the platforms early adopters, Matt Andrews.

He explained, “The platform started as a constructive place where people supported each other but quickly became a wasteland of warring tribes. It was like jumping into the toxicity of a tabloid, minus the funny aspects like Bat Boy and Elivis Presley.”

If this all sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the exact same thing that was recently proven Twitter had been doing before Musk’s takeover. 

Clubhouse, though, had a much smaller user base when engaging in this behavior, so once it became obvious what was going on, many of the users who enabled the platform to achieve critical mass in the first place, simply left. And who could blame them? Why stick around if you’re going to be silenced and attacked? As a result, the platform now is mostly made up of the people who destroyed it, and is limping along on life support.

Andrews said, “Activity on the platform plummeted because Clubhouse amplified the voices of people who were driven by destruction while suppressing the voices of people who were driven by creation. Essentially, they weaponized the technology and used it for nefarious purposes.”

This doesn’t just affect social media, though. It also has a severe detrimental effect on society as a whole.

Patrick Bet-David, a prominent entrepreneur, explained, “The consequence of cancel culture is that it causes everyone to walk on eggshells, which eventually forces the most entertaining and informative people to leave. It also creates blind spots, and makes people dumber and arrogant”

This made Clubhouse the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” for the social media world. While that canary didn’t die yet, it is twitching and flopping at the bottom of its cage, breathing its last few breaths. 

That should have been a wake up call at the time to executives at other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, but instead, they chose to double down. That decision, if not reversed—as it has been at Twitter, I believe will destroy these platforms as well. 

We’ve already seen the impact eliminating that mindset had on Twitter once Musk purchased it. 

Despite what some have claimed, user activity is at an all time high, along with new user growth, according to the team at Twitter. And speaking from firsthand experience, I can say that impressions of my own tweets have increased dramatically, jumping from about 50,000 impressions per month to consistently well over 1 million. This has significantly revitalized the platform, and at a time when others are stagnant or declining. 

Big tech is now at a crossroads. They can either continue supporting cancel culture, and in doing so, continue to alienate a significant portion of their user base and face stagnation and decline like Clubhouse has, or eliminate it and see their platforms flourish.