Francis Muli
Twitter, just like any other social media network, was created for people to interact for different reasons including business, social interactions and knowledge.
Unlike other platforms, Twitter had a limit of the number of characters one could post, 140 to be precise, which turned away so many people who thought this was a major limitation. The number of characters was revised upwards to 240 in November 2017.
Twitter also had/has another “limitation”, according to critics; lack of an edit button.
The two features or lack of meant one thing: anyone posting on Twitter had to be precise and with no mistakes.
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This left the platform for intellectuals, people who sought great knowledge, could think, and had limited or no space for errors. That was the original Twitter!
Between 2009 and 2015, photos (especially personal photos) rarely made it to the timelines.
Great discourses on education, economy, politics and world development were the order of the day on Twitter. Every tweet and response was well-written, backed up with facts and researched materials.
Apart from the discussions, the platform became one of the most authentic sources of news. Verifications badges were a preserve for authentic media houses, public figures and influential persons who posted authentic information.
Read: Twitter Rolls out New Chirp Font, Colours in Latest Redesign
Today, every Tom, Dick and Harry who gets engagements on Twitter for posting nonsense can easily get verified.
That is not the worst part of Twitter today. The worst part is the advent of nudity on the platform, especially from attention-seeking ladies.
Initially, Twitter would suspend accounts that posted nude photos, but seemingly the policy is silently fading away even as such accounts gain a massive following.
A platform that was once a meeting point for intellectuals is now becoming a centre of nudity, where it has become hard to scroll for one hour without meeting a nude photo posted by a lady, or sometimes a man.
The great are falling for it, with some renowned personalities at times caught liking the content, retweeting or even following the accounts.
Initially, such photos were posted on Instagram, a platform owned by Facebook whose original purpose was for sharing photos.
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The accounts with the best (read most nude) photos gain a lot of followers, mostly men who drool at the ‘beauty’.
The tactic is now shifting to Twitter, where accounts with massive following get deals from corporates as influencers.
Corporates are now considering Instagram as a less serious marketing platform and shifting to Twitter where there is a more “serious” segment of potential buyers. To get the following, nudity is used to attract attention and eventually following.
But soon Twitter could be just another Instagram, where nudity carries the day if control measures are not taken as early as now.
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