On Twenty Years of Twitter—er, X – Catholic World Report

(Images: Alexander Shatov and Rubaitul Azad / Unsplash) Twenty years ago, a small social media platform called Twitter was launched into public life. Few imagined that a service built around brief updates would become one of the principal architects of modern consciousness through an endless stream of opinions. Twitter—now X—would eventually reshape journalism and commerce and politics and entertainment and even the interior habits of ordinary people who suddenly found themselves living inside a permanent public conversation that seems to never end. Every civilization develops institutions that slow the flow of information. Wisdom usually grows through reflection rather than immediate reaction. Editorial judgment has historically functioned as a cultural filter (through families, churches, publishers, schools, and universities) before ideas reached the wider public through some process of testing and verification, which often frustrated impatient voices while also restraining emotional impulses. Newspapers and television eventually joined that process. They frequently served the common good through courageous reporting. They also frequently became ideological gatekeepers because concentrated influence eventually tempts every institution toward self-preservation. Every generation inherits imperfect editors. The only question concerns who edits the public conversation. Twitter and social media at large dramatically weakened that editorial barrier because every opinion could
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