Which isn't to say that Twitter is important to the United States' future, but also is to say that it's not unimportant.
Commons sway votes, which sway policy in a democracy.
Evidence suggests otherwise[1]. In the US (and really anywhere else) public policy is elite driven, and if anything public discourse and public opinion is amorphous and shifts as a response to whatever is passed down by institutions, be that corporate, academia, the media or what have you.
This very intuitively is visible in the 'topic of the day/week/month' nature of American discourse where everyone seemingly synchronized goes into a frenzy only to move on to the next thing a while later.
The 'commons' are a giant entertainment machine where people who have practically zero influence on anything meaningful can spent their time, that's about it.
[1]https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
No you can't. If someone records you saying something heretical, they can share it on social media and the cancel mob will get you fired from your job, even if you don't have social media yourself.
Except when people don't participate they get nothing out of the exchange and there's no discussion or progress