How did Twitter become a politically relevant platform?
Has anyone kept track of the timeline? Around 2010 Twitter was much derided as a platform for posting precious personal drivel. I am constantly intrigued.
(In fact, I wonder if this explains some of the change in tone here on HN. If HN has become big enough to be politically relevant, then it attracts people who are here to do political and ideological battle, not just to have a reasonable conversation. That could explain the annoying rise of the number of people who will argue to the ends of the earth, and never listen to the other side's point. It would also explain the rise of the number of people who deliberately twist the parent's words to try to create a zinger at the other side. Both of those kinds of posting annoy me and, in my view, detract from the site. I wonder if this is why that kind of thing has been increasing.)
Even though numerically Facebook was unbeatable in those countries, the heavy curation (show post to x% of users, see if it gets reactions before showing it to more) made the "real-time" aspect of Twitter much more attractive and useful.