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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 23 2017, @12:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the closing-the-barn-door dept.

If anyone knows how important Twitter is to Donald Trump, it's the president.

“Without the tweets, I wouldn't be here,” he told the Financial Times last month.

To which Twitter's co-founder says: Sorry about that, world.

Evan Williams, who still sits on the company's board of directors, recently told The New York Times that he wants to repair the damage he thinks Twitter and the broader Internet have wrought on society in the form of trolls, cyberbullies, live-streamed violence, fake news and — yes — Trump.

“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” Williams told the Times. “I was wrong about that.”

“If it’s true that he wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for Twitter, then yeah, I’m sorry,” he said.

Is Twitter responsible?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:43PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:43PM (#514488) Journal

    I had the same question when Twitter started getting a lot of press, because it was journalists and press junkies pushing it. When Ron Burgundy clones tell you something is a good idea, it's a good bet that it isn't.

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    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday May 23 2017, @10:34PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday May 23 2017, @10:34PM (#514550)

    Part of the reason that mainstream media gravitated towards Twitter is that it was a perfect fit for the average journalists' attention span. As in, your typical journalist has the curiosity of a cat and the attention span of a gnat. And this shows up in a lot of ways, not the least of which is that they're easily distracted by any stupid thing that comes their way while missing very important stories going on right out in the open if they ever bothered to look.

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    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.