> I've been on twitter since literally day two (I'm user 1018 or something like that). It was a farce back in the day: people talking about cats is my clearest memory. Ev posted on the Odeo blog and I checked it out. I remember the fail whale days.

I've been there since early 2007.

> Assuming that line of thinking, where'e the root cause, and when should it have been identified?

Strip away the trimmings and the technology of any platform - including Twitter - and what do you have?

One or several hosts organizing an event, opening the doors and inviting people to join.

It doesn't matter if there are 5, 500, 5 million or 500 million attendees. As soon as you open those doors, you bear a responsibility to ensure that the event doesn't devolve in abuse and violence.

In the digital world, that means you think about community governance, including moderation. It also means that, as more and more people join, you are aware of the diversity in opinions they bring. It means you delegate moderation, but - more importantly - you design, evolve and build your platform in a way that helps people.

It also - most importantly - means you actually listen and acknowledge the feedback people give.

Literally none of this was new. Digital forums, chatrooms, first gen social media like MySpace, newsgroups, mailing lists and comment sections already existed in 2005. The challenges and the expertise to manage an online discussions existed at the time.

Even before that, the challenges, pitfalls and dangers of providing a soapbox to an audience - any audience - were all too well known.

> It's harder to point to where and when and how that should have happened.

From day one.

I've read Nick Bilton's Hatching Twitter. The founders of Twitter had lofty ambitions about re-inventing the Web. But as soon as Twitter started gaining a bit of traction, they devolved in arguments, rows and petty politics.

I've seen how the platform re-invented itself a few times. I've been disillusioned with the subsequent redesigns. Most notably, how Twitter all but entirely closed it's API towards 3rd party developers, killing off a budding, vibrant ecosystem of enthusiasts that did build tools that filled in holes which Twitter didn't fill.

The reality of the matter is that few people - including Twitter - have been up front about what Twitter has always been: a plain business just like the next. With a clear profit motive. Never a community "for the people, by the people".

Twitter has been a business from the day it was conceived. It started off as a product within a business context (Odeo). It was conceived within a context where any idea that caught the slightest of attention immediately became shoe-horned in a business model from the get-go.

Never mind the consequences, the impact or long term strategies.

> If we can have _that_ discussion, we can inform future twitters, which I agree is a very worthwhile cause.

Oh, but we do inform "future twitters".

It's called education, schooling and upbringing. It's in passing on values and morals to future generations. It's instilling in younger generations basic notions about respect, empathy, learning to listen, restraint, civics and so on.

Twitter doesn't equate nor facilitate the public debate. It has commoditized the public debate and leveraged it to sell marketing and advertising services.

All the lofty talk from @Jack about nothing intruding into the public debate simply doesn't do away with the fact that actively investing in a platform that allows healthy community growth has always been seen for what it was: a cost that was perceived to outweigh the benefits.

That's the banality of evil at it's heart. Simply not recognizing that your own actions have very real consequences in the real world. Even when it's pointed out plainly to you.