It seems that Twitter is thinking about increasing the character limits. The Grauniad – or this writer at least – disapproves.
This is a terrible idea. It took me just 24 characters to say that. And before I devote considerably more to why, I’ll acknowledge that as problems go, this is tiny. Well, twice the size as before, admittedly – but still, compared to the devastation in Puerto Rico, or the resurgence of the far right in Germany, or even Arsenal’s sputtering start to the season, this is the most first world-iest of first world problems since the kale shortage.
And yet, for those of us for whom Twitter is our primary interface with what’s happening in the world, it’s a major, highly undesirable change. If it becomes permanent, it will irritate many users daily, to approximately the same degree as those preachy requests not to print emails that make your email flow over to another page when you do print them. And that’s reason enough to argue against it.
Jesus Christ. If this inane, vacuous medium is the idiot’s primary interface with the world, no wonder it’s going to hell in a hand-basket. Sure, brevity may well be the soul of wit. However a nuanced discussion requires rather more words (and thought) than the brief character limit imposed by Twitter. The other problem, unfortunately – which stems for the former – is that this lack of nuance, this lack of thought, leads to the Twitter mob; an unthinking mass of morons who jump on the bandwagon du jour without once engaging their brains and stopping to think about whatever it is they have decided to condemn with their inane hashtags.
Fuck Twitter. 140 characters or 280 characters. Either way, it has become the vehicle of the brain-dead, unthinking moronic offence takers and bullies. Fuck them all.
Yep fuck Twatter ! Home of uneducated fuckwits as far as i’m concerned.
I don’t have a link, but there’s a Guardian article calling the character increase racist, because it’s more letters to spread white supremacy, or something
You forgot “and the horse they rode in on”!
My first thought about this was who the hell cares? Well someone without enough real problems it would seem. I don’t follow twitter so maybe I’m not qualified to comment but far as I can see most of it seems to be inane nonsense. The occasional gem does appear now and then, usually in the form of a brilliant put down of someone who really deserves it. Julia M often spots these.
It takes a lot longer to write a thoughtful tweet in 140 characters. Most people haven’t the time or more likely just can’t be bothered, just like they can’t be bothered with reading comprehension or basic fact-checking. I would like to think the extra characters will improve communication, but somehow I highly doubt it.
I don’t for one minute believe that it will improve communication. Twitter is the very essence of vacuousness.