"Soon after Twitter took its place in the tech-driven media revolution a decade ago, it proved to be a forceful amplifier of ideas and personalities, one that could be a political game changer. But you have to wonder whether the cap on Twitter’s growth is tied more to that most basic — and base — of human emotions: hatred. It courses through Twitter at an alarming rate, turbocharged by this year’s political campaigns and the rise of anti-immigration movements that dabble in racist, sexist and anti-Semitic tropes . And this is to say nothing of its use by terrorist recruiters. The openness of Twitter, and the sheer speed and volume of information that moves through it, present a particularly hard challenge that executives there say they are rushing to meet.Each new media development has served as a mirror for the society that spawned it. It sure seems time for a good, hard look."
At www.nytimes.com
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