Twitter has only been around for a decade but has already become an essential part of our political culture. Anthony Weiner fell from political grace for sending suggestive photos over Twitter, President-elect Donald Trump is no stranger to voicing his opinions on the platform and our own vice mayor has used it to express his insensitive opinions. Though these tweets get a great deal of attention, they are set on a backdrop of intense ideological bickering that occurs constantly on the website. Partisan bickering is a problem on all social media sites, but it seems to be especially prevalent on Twitter. Twitter is a great platform on which to voice political opinions, but it contributes to the systematic devaluing of those opinions.
Twitter is structurally unsuited for productive political discussion. The most obvious reason for this is the character limit on tweets. It is very hard to make a substitutive point in 140 characters, especially if it’s something as complicated as government policy. At the same time, the short form of Twitter encourages people to share their opinions. It is much easier to just send out a tweet than make a post on Facebook. Twitter itself encourages people to share their opinions in a free and constant stream. Combined, this means people are encouraged to constantly share their simplified political opinions.
Twitter is also a very connected and open platform. It is very easy to interact with other Twitter users even if you are not following each other. The development of the hashtag only reinforced this connected community. While this allows for a greater exchange of ideas, when it comes to political disagreements this creates problems. Finally, Twitter has pioneered the idea of “trending” topics. Trending highlights new and interesting discussions, but it does not facilitate sustained discussions. This may work for some fleeting news story, but substantive political discussion takes nuance that both sides only come to through time. Political speech matters very little when it will be essentially irrelevant hours after posting.
The result of all this noise is that political opinions and political speech itself is constantly devalued on Twitter. People’s individual opinions become lost when they get put into a group epitomized by a hashtag. At the same time, the sheer amount of intensely condensed content lets people read opinions in whatever way they want. Any attempts to argue over Twitter prove to be confusing and near-fruitless. This eventually turns Twitter into a never-ending parade confirmation of your political beliefs. This is a problem for most of the internet, but it is especially bad on Twitter. If everyone is only confirming their own opinions, everyone’s opinion becomes inherently less valuable.
Twitter has already helped to devalue political opinion, so much so that it is near devoid of consequences for political statements. The platform is so fleeting and the amount of content so massive that is hard to properly hold someone accountable on it. It took more than four years for anyone to notice that our own vice mayor was tweeting insensitive remarks. He did not try to hide his tweets; the sheer mass and distracted nature of Twitter hid them for him.
Twitter is only part of a larger system that values tribes over truth. In the face of such staggering political ranchor it is hard to know what to do. I am someone who is normally for as much political interaction as possible. I’ve already written columns this year in support of using social media for political discussion and the need to interact with people from different backgrounds. Twitter does not seem to be a place where either of these can be achieved. It's hard to say where our political discourse and understanding can truly live. I can’t answer that question. However, I know the first step the answer is recognizing the problem and looking for a solution. Twitter is part of the problem, and until we recognize that we cannot hope to find a solution.
Bobby Doyle is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.novak@cavalierdaily.com.
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