I am coming to the conclusion that Twitter is a major negative force on the internet. Consider the nature of an argument on Twitter. Short, strong opinions that lack all semblance of nuance. What does that sound like to you? Oh yeah, insults that's what. Twitter is an insult delivery service. It encourages tribalism through retweeting things you agree with and joining hashtags of like-minded people. It encourages dogpiling through weaponised retweeting and the infamous "hey I want to share our conversation with all my followers by putting a . before the @reply, what do you mean all my followers are suddenly attacking you? I couldn't have predicted that!". It is one of the hardest mediums on the planet to have a proper discussion through. Nobody can fit nuance and understanding into 140 characters or less. It's about soundbytes, pithy one-liners, insults and strong, vapid opinions and all of those things invariably lead to conflict. It is one of the easiest mediums to take peoples arguments out of context. It is one of the easiest mediums to dig back through and find "damning evidence" from like 5 years ago that this person is a jerk. The amount of people willing to unleash fury on someone due to one 140 character thing they said half a decade ago is beyond belief, yet it happens constantly.

Twitter is good for a couple of things. Linking interesting stuff. Making pithy jokes and comments for the internet to giggle at (not interact with) and pictures of awesome dogs. Any attempt to use it for anything else is folly and frankly I imagine a great deal of the current conflict we have on social media is as a direct result of the mechanics and limitations of this stupid website. Sadly it has become essential to our business and many others, or we'd have dumped it long ago. Twitter has a lot to answer for.