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President Trump is destroying Twitter

President Trump has taken control of Twitter, wrenching the wheel, leading the dialogue, and steering it into almost certain disaster. And he won’t let go. 

For someone who supposedly doesn’t like Twitter very much Trump's obsessed with it. So are plenty of other people, but they’re not the president of the United States. Most of their tweets don’t matter. At least, not like his.

SEE ALSO: CNBC's Trump tweet alert is a new level of absurd

Every single one of Trump’s tweets matters, which—while it may sadly be Peak Trump—is turning into a waking nightmare for the rest of us. And it could doom Twitter.

When Trump unexpectedly won the White House, I mistakenly assumed it might be the best thing to happen to Twitter in years, especially after Trump made it clear that he still wanted to tweet on his personal account.

The leader of the free world tweeting, unfiltered to his continents should be news and social media gold, but it’s not, Instead, something awful is happening to the fabric of Twitter as we know it. 

Trump unfiltered

Since taking office, President Trump has Tweeted dozens of times, and used the @POTUS account as a retweet engine. Sometimes he goes on multi-tweet rants; other times, he's spanning "bigly" thoughts across multiple Tweets. He uses exclamation points and all caps and adjectives, all to so succinctly express what’s on his mind, at that exact moment. It's nothing if not visceral.

For example: On Thursday, Trump tweeted his take on how Chelsea Manning, who was pardoned by Former President Barack Obama after serving 7 years of a 35-year espionage sentence, was an “ungrateful TRAITOR,” and castigated Manning for calling Obama a weak leader.

It was classic Trump, and also, new Trump—a President, Tweeting what he’s feeling, when he’s feeling it. It's a level of directness, spontaneity, and complete disregard for poise we've never, ever seen in an American President. In fact, getting off-the-cuff remarks (or even hot mic comments) was a substantial happening for presidents before Trump. Trump simply turns on the social media mic, and started speaking.

By mid-day, that Manning tweet's numbers had ballooned. As of this writing, it's got over 22,000 retweets. Many of the mentions were incredibly angry, and some used language I’m not sure you’d want the secret service to see. 

I assume that this is exactly what President Trump wants—he loves people talking about him, regardless of what they say (if they are high-profile and say something negative, he’ll simply Tweet about them)—but is it what Twitter wants? Or needs?

For the last year, and then some, I’ve talked to plenty of people who’ve complained that their Facebook feed was full of divisive political talk—so much so that many took a break from Facebook, for the election, or even a permanent one from the social media platform. Facebook survived. It has over 1.1 billion users.

Twitter now has a similar problem. The feed that I've enjoyed for a decade is now reliably overstuffed with Trump-related Tweets and angry, explosive political arguments—and most of them started with a Tweet from the President himself. 

As the President, he's followed by virtually every single media outlet on the planet. Nothing he posts is missed. 

Not a bedtime-rant:

Not a media shade tweet:

Not an embarrassing typo.

Not a remarkably rational Tweet:

Not a Tweet intended to scare America businesses into doing things his way:

Every Tweet generated tens of thousands more. Politics, policy, pandemonium breaking out on Twitter every single day.

It should be making Twitter awesome. 

It’s not.

I never really thought Twitter had a personality before, but now, I do. Before President Trump, it was like the too-loud, motor-mouthed friend full of news, funny thoughts, and sometimes, unsolicited opinions. You liked the mix and the guy, so you kept him around. Lately, however, he’s been talking faster. Frenetically even. And he seems stuck, like a broken record on one topic. He repeats the name "Trump" over and over again—and seems very, very angry. 

He’s so exhausting, you consider dropping him as a friend.

Some people are taking breaks from Twitter as we speak. I love the platform, but have considered doing the same. People like me, the ones who do more than just consume Tweets, but consistently add content to the stream, are the lifeblood of a growth-starved Twitter. If we leave, Twitter is doomed.

What if everyone except Trump and the media that must cover him leaves? What will Twitter be then? A virtual version of his White House Press conferences?

A direct information pipeline between the President of the United States and the people should be a good thing, but instead, President’s Trump’s continued presence on @realDonaldTrump (which, oh, is real alright, but is it presidential?) account feels like a cancer. It's undermining his young presidency, and slowly killing the Twitter I love. 

I want our President to Tweet. I want him to share facts (not Alternate Facts), activities, proposals, but not the emotion of the moment. Twitter was not designed as an attack pulpit—trolls, after all, don’t have a pulpit, since most of their audiences and influence are much, much smaller—but he's making it into one.

The earliest Twitter interface asked, “What are you doing?” That’s something I do want to know from the President. As for what he’s thinking, I prefer Trump start filtering some of that, at least if he wants to save the relevance and usefulness of his favorite social media platform.

BONUS: Here's a clip of Kellyanne Conway's previous (and mercifully brief) career in stand-up comedy

By: +Matthews Martins