Twitter Premium

By mistake, I clicked on Twitter premium today. Now you have to pay money to Twitter to write longer posts. Was not the whole point of Twitter, was people's innate willingness to communicate ideas through short posts. 

Short posts are more impactful and more likely to go viral. Even for complicated topics, a well written twitter thread communicates more effectively to a lay audience. 

Dont get me wrong, long-form content has its merit. Complicated ideas can be more easily explained with long articles. However, almost no lay person likes to read long articles. It has its place in academic journals, research papers and self-help articles. 

Imagine if Twitter correctly charged for the privilege of writing short posts. Suppose there is a minimum 300-character limit on a free account. Now to abuse a person, you will have to explain your reasons.  You will realize how silly it is. It will take more work to obfuscate the facts to make a political point. 

Currently, Twitter pretends to exchange platforms of ideas, but it is mostly a platform for exchanging emotions. 

The world would be a much better place if we had to explain our ideas. It will help cool down rampant misinformation campaigns. 

Before social media there was only TV news and newspaper. Governments used to fear a bold news article or a well written TV segment. There was no way to spread misinformation scams to drown out the truth.  For example Bofors scam brought down Congress government. In today's age such a scam will be drowned out by irrelevant noises. 

The more noise there is, harder is to create a signal in the noise. 

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