Is social media something you'd be willing to pay a modest monthly fee to use? There was an interesting reaction on X, formerly Twitter, to the fact that the Sunday Times story on Russell Brand was behind a paywall.

Aside from going to the newsagent on Sunday morning and buying a newspaper (something I fully endorse, by the way), users were either forced to subscribe online for a relatively small sum, or resort to one of the accounts which was tweeting the story out, piece by piece. Some seemed to be irate by this fact, in spite of the resources involved in putting an investigation like this together.

Apparently, the Times, Sunday Times and Channel 4 began working on it in 2019, and I can only imagine how much fact checking was involved, not to mention expensive lawyers to get it over the line and hit the publish button.

I should of course point out that Brand strenuously denies the allegations, and I don't intend to get into the weeds of this story, other than to express my amazement at how many people declared an opinion without reading a single word of the story when it was published.

Social media for me does has some positive benefits, and I've seen examples of kindness from time to time. However, in many other respects, it's the Wild West, where a bar brawl is always just around the corner. Keyboard warriors' weapon is choice is of course a Qwerty keyboard rather than a knuckleduster.

I often wonder whether Donald Trump would have been elected without the power of social media. Would the Brexit referendum have been quite as divisive for the country without the tribalism on both sides of the debate, which was amplified on the likes of Twitter and Facebook? In short, would we all be better off if social media was just turned off for a bit? Conspiracy theories also thrived during the pandemic, with us being told by some elements to 'wake up' (although it was never quite clear what from). It's perhaps too little too late, but medical professionals are to be verified by YouTube through a new system they are bringing in. In 2022 alone, health videos were viewed a staggering three billion times on the video-sharing platform in the UK alone. I'm also a little taken aback that Russell Brand has amassed over six million followers on YouTube alone, not to mention TikTok, which I don't use as I'm 46.

I reckon a compulsory Twitter charge might cajole me into giving it up. It has been going downhill since the bird logo was taken off their art deco building in America, and replaced with an X that looks like something I designed in my art homework in Year 9. The blue verified tick is now merely something that signifies the user is subscribed to 'Twitter Blue', or 'X Premium' as it's now known. It costs around £11 a month in the UK. That is the same amount I pay for my monthly Observer subscription, and almost three times what it costs to buy this newspaper each week for a month.

It's Musk's train set, of course, and if he wants to charge users for playing with it, that's his prerogative. He claims a fee will ward off the bots, or automated accounts, that have been a bugbear for him ever since he entered negotiations to purchase the platform for what some said was an overinflated price. He tried to establish the true number of active users, excluding bots, and negotations almost broke down as a result of the conflicting claims he got back .Apparently, ad revenue has slumped by as much as 60 per cent since he took over.

I guess he has to make his money back somehow, but I can think of many things I'd rather spend a few pounds on each month. The balance between freedom of expression and clamping down on hate speech is a delicate tightrope walk, and I fear Musk's drive towards freedom of expression has led to a surge in bile on a platform that used to be quite a nice place to hang out. I do think people ought to be called out for creating multiple accounts under fake names, as this leads to much of the trolling that goes on. I don't think a compulsory charge is the answer, though. Perhaps we just need to go back to speaking to each other a little more, and doom scrolling a little less. Even the name 'social media' often feels like a misnomer. Right, off to check my tweets whilst it's still free to do so.