Re: Interesting point about Twitter
The problem with Twitter is the adolescent and immature run riot.
Almost any form of social media is prone to this, including offline. Look in any local newspaper's letters page, and its the same small coterie of axe-grinders writing angry letters about their opinions, and often (even with editorial control) having weeks-long arguments by letter, trying to shout down any opposing views. Admittedly language is strongly moderated, but intellectually it is often the same old pap from the same groupthink (around my way, Labour party supporters seem to think that their tireless coordinated political whingeing is somehow of interest to anybody, but I'm sure that this varies according to locality, local issues and demographics).
Even in supposedly moderated on-line forums in some there are the unpleasant, passive aggressive lurkers (often people with far too much time on their hands) who always have a strongly held view on anything regardless of their own limited knowledge, that they insist on foisting on others, and trying to shut down contrary expressions. Or you have mob rule because the host publication appeals to a particular demographic or political persuasion. In most respects the Reg forums are a beacon in a dark world - allowing very wide ranging views, tolerant of rude words and argument but not abuse. But that's not just about good moderation, it is that the Commentariat is a broad church, where (generally) we don't take or mean offence, where we appreciate challenge, and we are broadly tolerant of opposing thoughts and arguments. None of the mainstream social media platforms can say that. One other thing is that the Reg forums are a small enough community to work in the sense of human social interaction - we recognise many of each other's names or pseudonyms, we have an inkling of their style, a guess about their political and social thoughts, and often their experience and knowledge levels. On Twitter and Facebook, other than for small private groups, the "community" is often far too large to allow any form of civilised exchange at a human scale, or for people to know anything about the other people with whom they interract. As configured, the big social media platforms allow, shield and reward people who want to shout their angry views to the entire world. If they could reduce the "scale of engagement" for individual posters, that might be a start. Advertisers (despite my contempt for them) pay for access to as many targeted people as possible; But there's no reason for individuals to need or have that access to spew the contents of their meagre brains to the whole of Twitter or Facebook.