Thread by @Noahpinion

It's very hard to have a nice, civil discussion with a friend on Twitter without randos jumping in and insulting both participants and trying to make it into some sort of dunk contest.

Not only does this disrupt the discussion, and not only does this convince bystanders that they're witnessing a fight rather than a pleasant chat, but it also gives the false impression that one's interlocutor has deliberately summoned a gang of attack trolls.

For example, yesterday @tylercowen had a very nice chat about minimum wage policy. But as you can see from the replies to our tweets, a number of people jumped in on both sides to insult us. It was very unhelpful.

https://twitter.com/tylercowen/status/1319720571601625090

And limiting replies doesn't help, because you have to do it from the very first tweet. Allowing replies is the only way discussions get started in the first place, and yet if you allow replies from the beginning, you can't turn them off halfway down.

In other words, Twitter pushes people to have fights instead of discussions. It's engineered to turn everyone into gladiators.

There should be a way for people to have public real-time conversations that can be retweeted and shared, but without random people jumping in and attacking.

But bad feelings and aggression are Twitter's business model. This platform hurts our society.

(end)