IN JANUARY, ON the heels of @realDonaldTrump’s second year in office, shortly after Elon Musk had been fined $20 million and Kevin Hart’s Oscar-hosting gig had been canceled because of controversial tweets, and weeks following Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s return from a 10-day silent meditation trip to Myanmar, about which he praised the food and the beauty of the monasteries but neglected to mention the ongoing regional genocide, Twitter made it clear that some things were about to change.
Just not the tweets. Though the company had spent the better part of the year promoting “healthy conversations,” it wasn’t much interested in putting the screws on its users. Debates, disagreements, the occasional blow-out controversy—that was all stuff that made Twitter Twitter. No, instead, Twitter decided to change itself from the outside in. It was time to give the experience of using Twitter a makeover.
