Twitter’s “Public Square” Analogy Is Completely Delusional

The art of excusing toxic behavior and denying the impact

In 2015, Twitter was on the verge of irrelevance. The company recorded its first quarterly dip in monthly active users and Facebook had emerged as the clear winner of social media. The outlook wasn’t pretty.

Then the 2016 election happened.

Surely enough, Twitter began to attract more attention than ever before thanks to the new president of the United States — a notorious celebrity figure who has been using the platform religiously since 2011. Although his tweets are often incendiary, combative and factually inaccurate, the world is fixated on his account. With every post, the president typically intends to either paint himself in a positive light or someone else in a negative light.

But it doesn’t matter what he shares or when he shares it. The media is there to report on it and his audience is there to spread it. The platform serves as a powerful and effective line of communication to his loyal supporters.

As a company, Twitter has received plenty of criticism for allowing the president to use the channel however he pleases (including to abuse others and spread falsehoods), but CEO Jack Dorsey stands by the notion that Twitter is a “public…