In 2011, I appeared on an RTÉ Radio documentary called #TwitteronTrial in which presenter Pat O’Mahony and a panel of Twitter afficionados tried to convince me of the worth of the four-year-old microblogging platform. On air, I sceptically set up a profile. In the succeeding months I learned its worth as a journalistic tool and proceeded to get addicted to its endless stream of breaking news, novelty and argument.
Two weeks ago, I deactivated that profile. I hadn’t posted there in some time due to changes Elon Musk had made to the platform since 2022, but I would check in occasionally. I was, by this point, unsurprised by the racism, misogyny and homophobia on the platform but I…