[JasonFruit]

I guess it makes sense that you'd want for a position like this to have someone with a deep understanding of social media in general, how Twitter is used in Middle Eastern cultures, how to discourage radicalization on the platform, that sort of thing — exactly the sort of thing you'd learn in the 77th Brigade. And yet — it's not a really comfortable sort of thing, is it? It's an admission that, at the very least, the platform is trying to manipulate its users, and at most, engaging in that manipulation on the behalf of governments it supports to the detriment of other groups.

[pjc50]

The Arab Spring both made and broke twitter, and for the same reason: it became very obvious that it now had the power to achieve massive social change.

That got a lot of people on board trying to achieve positive social change .. and a lot of people trying to achieve antisocial change (promotion of racism etc), states trying to neutralise it in their own politics, and states trying to promote it in the politics of their enemies.

The best ways to sabotage a social movement are with infighting, misidentification of enemies, and distraction with irrelevant goals. Twitter also provides a new one: arguing with trolls and sockpuppets. Hugely engaging, provides moral vindication, achieves less than nothing.