How Twitter Spaces Became Town Squares

and why Musk is trying to destroy them to destroy democracy

Elon Musk is purposely single handedly destroying America’s Townsquare.  The ability for everyday citizens to investigate, discuss and be informed on current events is the newfound power of social media. It has its pros and cons; but for me, during this era of turmoil, I found a gem in the Twitter Spaces tool.  Launched in November 2020 amid a global pandemic and a major election, twitter spaces quickly became a place to gather and connect with people from across the country and around the world via audio.

These virtual community meetings began as a general stream of conscious rap session but quickly morphed into topic and purpose-specific discussions. I had been on Twitter since 2009 but fell in love with the roll out of spaces. During pandemic quarantine and lockdowns, I joined a lot of the early spaces on topics from technology, music, art and mental health to politics. I got to know many of the Twitter Space Beta Testers.

I started hosting twitter spaces about two years ago which began the day after Christmas December 2021.  Between holiday boredom and rising political anxiety, I was drawn to a space titled “pro-democracy” and wandered in and heard people speaking my language. I was immediately made co-host of what became a daily space for democracy-minded people. For an entire year I hosted and moderated a twitter space Monday through Friday. We all understood the state of our democracy and were happy to have found a like-minded collective willing to fight to change it. The space later officially became Democracy First as resistance to the “America First” propagandists. We were regularly targeted by trolls and Ops but remained undeterred because we were starting to see the effectiveness of our efforts.

The early days of our conversation involved a lot of venting, expressing frustration over the deteriorating situation in our country from the pandemic to the presidency and the politics surrounding it all.  As the 2022 mid-term elections ramped up, the space quickly became a virtual town hall where candidates running for local, state and federal elections all over the country joined for live Q&A’s. We vetted them well. It was a great opportunity for people to connect with candidates, to feel involved in the process and candidates to connect with people in a more relaxed authentic manner.

We shared stories about our own personal civic work, shared call-to-actions to save democracy, and built coalitions to assist one another with phone banking, postcard writing, canvassing, fundraising, and even protesting. One of those groups raised over $100K for two Democratic Senate campaigns. We did a phone and email bliss to encourage local lawmakers to hold a run-off election for a county commission seat that resulted in a tie. Although we didn’t change their mind, we had some effect because the new MAGA lawmakers expressed their open resentment of being contacted by ‘outsiders” whilst openly stating

“Our founding fathers were very clear that we are not a democracy and we were never to be a democracy,”

further extolling we were a country of rules and laws, the unspoken but understood part was as long as they (an extreme white minority) made the rules—apartheid.

After the mid-term elections, I decided to return to my podcast project “Advocacy Arena” which I had begun in November 2021. I had let it sit trying to decide how to implement my idea and develop the content. I continued hosting the daily twitter space because I felt the urgency of now to save our democracy. Everything else could wait because without democracy it wouldn’t matter anyway.  Taking what I had learned from the Democracy First space and my vision for Advocacy Arena Podcast, I started a weekly space “Advocacy Arena” every Monday, 12pm CST.

There I could amplify the voices of advocates and continue to facilitate solution-oriented conversations around our democracy and other societal issues like education, housing and healthcare, especially mental health. The understanding being that we cannot truly improve these issues if we no longer have a democratic society. I also started doing separate one-on-one interviews with some of the regular speakers to highlight and amplify their advocacy work. These have turned out to be a great catalyst for discussion and inspiration.

The regular participants come from many diverse walks of life and professions in states across America and a few other countries as well.  They span the gambit from everyday moms, dads, sons, and daughters to doctors, lawyers, teachers, healthcare, social workers, tech and banking professionals, journalists, reporters, retirees, veterans, students and public servants like precinct captains, local party chairs, congressional aides and others. They are Black, White, Indigenous, Hispanic, Asian and include members of the LGQBT community.

What began as a bunch of strangers, sharing personal life stories and concerns that ranged from slight anxiousness to total panic, fear and helplessness; became a beautiful loving collective of civically engaged citizens. In those early days, the length of time our spaces lasted averaged 6 hours with one marathon 11-hour space, and quite a few 8-hour sessions. People began to express how important our space had become to them; so to maintain it consistent, I eventually got it settled around 3-3.5 hours.

How did that happen? I had to create some rules and guidelines, which I read at the beginning of the space.  They laid out the purpose of the space to keep the conversation more tightly focused --always connecting the common thread of “democracy.”  I limited the speaker’s time. I forbid arguments –muted mics, dropped and removed speakers, when necessary ---anyone who did not respect the rules of etiquette.

I started as co-host and chief moderator.  Within a few months, I became Host because the original host kept losing his account for breaking twitter rules. The spaces were recorded, when he lost his account, recordings were also gone. People who were unable to attend or participate often listened to the recording. I continued as the Host, played nice on Twitter to keep my account and maintain those recordings. I had people tell me they stopped listening to their daily radio stations and tuned in to us. Others were inspired to become actively engaged in their local community and government politics.

After the election, the co-host and I had different visions. Proud of the work achieved, serendipity led me to build on the success through my Advocacy Arena Podcast. I continue to encourage and support others in holding twitter spaces, build community and information channels especially at this time of critical mass: dis/misinformation, propaganda and conspiracies flooding our lives today. I believe in the power of the ripple effect; my efforts spur others and so on and so forth –the power of many, the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Damn Elon for purposely destroying this. Advocacy Arena continues on Mondays at noon CST (even on holidays). Our efforts to save democracy will not be deterred. We will gather and build in other places, but for as long as possible we will continue to

“…make some noise and get in good trouble necessary trouble”

on Twitter and in spaces.  I will mourn what we had and vow to hang on till its dying vapors.

written by D.Batiste, Host of “Advocacy Arena” (twitter: @desiadesigns &@advocacyarena)