Running List of Virginia Elected Officials, Candidates, Politicos Who Are on Meta’s Possible “Twitter Killer,” “Threads”

With Elon Musk busy destroying Twitter (so much for being the “global town square“) and, in the process, flushing tens of billions of dollars (his money, plus wealthy investors from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and god-knows-where-else) down the toilet, many of Twitter’s 250 million users are looking for new homes. The alternatives, to date, include (among others): Post News, Mastodon, Spoutible, Spill, Hive Social, Substack Notes, and now…Meta’s supposed/potential “Twitter Killer” called Threads.

Not surprisingly, there are advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses with every one of these Twitter alternatives. In my mind, though, the biggest problem is that we’re now in the process of rapidly losing the “network effect” of “everyone” – journalists, politicians, scientists, you name it – being on one site. Check out this excellent explanation by Kyla Scanlon of what I’m referring to:

“So Twitter…certainly seems like it might be dying. But what was Twitter and why did it matter? Twitter was somewhat of a public good. Municipalities informed their citizens and news organizations shared stories. A place to talk, the virtual world, ground zero to figure out what was going on. When things happened, you checked Twitter first.  Twitter isn’t social media in the way that we think about social media now. It’s communication on the mass scale; it’s not like Facebook or Instagram…Twitter is not a personal platform. You can have a conversation about anything with anyone – friends and new people alike…about everything from the fruit fly connectome to the war in Ukraine. And that conversational part is key…You can yell in the comments on Instagram and TikTok, but the quote tweet and the retweet elevate all users to equal. Twitter is not really about non-interactive hierarchies and influencers selling things, it’s about letting people yell at each other. And that’s the discourse. 

Twitter managed to be indispensable to a lot of influential people. It was never really a good business, which is why it was up for sale, and why Elon Musk was able to buy it. As Twitter falls apart, as Musk leads its transformation into something different and less influential, missing the understanding of what Twitter is, beyond being chronically online…It’s not a question of where to go but how to replicate the importance of the site. BlueSky, Mastodon, Spill, Mark Zuckerberg’s Threads. If Twitter does die, nothing will really replace it. The network of facts, supply reels, all those buzzwords; it had all of it. It’s decaying. Long-term, we need a place to gather in our decentralized, digital world. And for better or for worse, Twitter was that, and it’s irreplaceable, at least in this current version of the internet.”

In short, Twitter was far from perfect, but it served very important purposes and will be hard if not impossible to replace – not functionally or technically, but in terms of the “network effect” and as a key “place to gather in our decentralized, digital world.” Unfortunately, Elon Musk – who despite being super-rich is FAR less intelligent than many (including Musk himself!) thought he was, and also FAR less competent, FAR less stable, not to mention FAR more of an extremist/fascist/bigot/nutjob, etc. – is well on the way to destroying this, for really no good reason that anyone seems to be able to figure out. So people are scattering to the wins, including to Meta’s Threads, which just launched yesterday and quickly saw 10 million people sign up (in part because it’s integrated with Instagram, which has over 1 BILLION users). 

With regard to Virginia politicos, a bunch of them have already moved over to Threads. Here are just a few I’ve already seen over there, broken into categories. I’ll continue to add more as I see them…and please leave suggestions in the comments section!

Members of Congress: Sen. Tim Kaine; Sen. Mark Warner; Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA07); Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA08) (D-VA08); Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA04); Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA10); Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA11);

Current/Former VA General Assembly members: Sen. Louise Lucas (D-SD18); Del. Candi King (D-HD23); Sen. Mamie Locke (D-SD23); Del. Marcia Price (D-HD85); Sen. Scott Surovell (D-SD34); former Del. Jay Jones; VA Senate Dems; Sen. Aaron Rouse (D-SD22);

Virginia Candidates: Saddam Salim (D-SD37); Lashrecse Aird (D-SD13); Joshua Cole (D-HD65); Rozia Henson (D-HD19); Albert Vega (D-Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Springfield District);

Virginia Local Elected Officials: Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson; Fairfax County Supervisor James Walkinshaw; Fairfax County School Board member Karl Frisch; Fairfax County School Board member Rachna Sizemore Heizer; Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney;

Virginia Politicos/Journalists/Parties: Blue Virginia; Sam Shirazi; Brandon Jarvis; Matt Royer; Michael Pope; Virginia Democrats; Jamie Lockhart; Mel Pruett; Sally McAuliffe; Liam Watson;  Fairfax Dems; Rural Groundgame; Pete Gibson; Goad Gatsby; Sarah Graham Taylor; VAPLAN; Shannon Sorrell; Zach Lincoln; Philip Scranage; Brian Devine; GMU Democrats; Caitlin Bennett; Bryan Graham;