The biggest flaw of Twitter

So I recently joined Twatter. Actually, it has been far less painful that I thought it might be. It requires remarkably little effort on my part (an absolute must) and I’ve managed to find some decent links on there and some tweets that are amusing. I’d prefer it if the link between my blog and Twitter worked consistently – unfortunately, Twitterfeed can take more than 24 hours to transfer a link onto Twitter. If it bothers at all, that is. However, over all, Twitter is more useful than I though it could be.

Yet there is one massive flaw with Twitter and, of course, that is in its unique selling point – namely that the maximum number of characters for a tweet is 140. That is a more than enough for sharing a link or a quick quip but for anything more meaningful, it is woeful at best.

Let me give you an example – someone on Twitter this week shared a link about the “voluntary” sector. Others on Twitter disputed his understanding of the word “voluntary”. Almost immediately this descended into those in the “debate” claiming that they knew what voluntary meant and the others didn’t. That was the “debate” – basically, playground banter – calling the person you can’t agree with stupid. What was missing was an analysis of what the words meant and why different definitions were being disputed.

Of course, political debate often is reduced to the level if name-calling – there’s nothing new in that. But the problem with Twatter is that it reduces all political debate to the level of 140 characters which, in the age of government by soundbite, simply advances this debasement of political debate. That’s why we see so many politicians on Twatter – it is the perfect medium for them. They can say stuff without having the space to explain or defend what they say.

Twatter has its uses, but it is well worth being aware of its limitations as well.