How Twitter Degrades Discourse and Encourages Distortions: Illustrated by ex-Pentagon Official and NYU Law Professor Ryan Goodman

Summary: There are multiple reasons political discourse is degraded by the fact that it now plays out primarily on Twitter, reasons that are inherent in that site’sformat and functionality: the elimination of nuance due to space constraints; mobbehavior coercingadherence to group-think orthodoxies; the addict-like,insatiable craving for re-tweets and likes whichthe brain processes as approval and for which it thus produces chemical rewards of ecstasy and a sense of worth; and highly tribalizedfiefdoms where it’s remarkably...