[Andy McDandy]

Can someone please explain to me the upside (If any) of Twitter?

[Boiler]

It has none, although I understand it is more effective in getting complaints reacted to than a letter - probably because you're publicly humiliating your target rather than privately complaining.

Although picking up tweets to illustrate points here is interesting, I'd sooner take a rotary wire brush in a drill to my glans than join it.

Another tech innovation that I wish a pox upon.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I'm using Twitter to keep up to date on Eurotunnel's progress. It works in that sense (although there are far too many people complaining that they're not getting a live feed from the incident room).

[youngian]

Can someone please explain to me the upside (If any) of Twitter?

You choose who you wish to follow like diplomats, lawyers, business people, technocrats who are more enlightening about Brexit in one Tweet than a month of BBC news.

[Kreuzberger]

I have only seriously been engaging for little over a year, but for me. @youngian nails it.

By and large, you can treat it like any other social gathering. Learn, show off, discuss, bully and insult people, engage others to try to nudge opinion.

I find that trying to avoid being a total tosser or blind drunk helps enormously.

The "media" bit of social media is where there is a lot of learning to be done. In the days of yore, men and women who reflected the proprietor's interests and motives, and who then reached the required levels of wisdom, experience and leadership got to be what we called an "editor". There were only ever a couple of dozen of these people in the country at any given time.

Some were benign in their influence, some were malignant and metastatic, leading the Today Programme's output and setting the/their news agenda for the coming day.

They are a waning force but power vacuums always present as many challenges as they do opportunities. Expecting some gobby cunt off Twitter to step in to the breach is as ill-conceived as it is unrealistic. Just block them. Most of them give up after a while.

[Bones McCoy]

Random CAPITALS - Check.
#hashtag #MISH #mash - Check.

Mentalist confirmed.

[Bones McCoy]

Can someone please explain to me the upside (If any) of Twitter?

[bluebellnutter]

At the end of the day, Twitter is what you make of it. I find, as said earlier, it's a useful tool to cut through the crap on Brexit and it reassured me that literally millions of other people are despairing of it in the same way I am, which has been a help. It's also great for cricket-related humour.

[youngian]

Some were benign in their influence, some were malignant and metastatic, leading the Today Programme's output and setting the/their news agenda for the coming day.

Among the delights of Twitter is the Today hashtag which is now devoted to what a joke the Today programme is. There's worst ways to start the morning than Tweeting to John Humphrys to spoil his day by telling him what a useless interviewer and wanker he is.

Also there are no Brexit versions of Secret Barrister, Alex Andreou, Steve Bullock or Ian Dunt on Twitter just fury and self-pity. And I've been reduced to tears by EU citizens engaging with Twitter to describe the fucking mess their lives are now in thanks to millions of spiteful pricks who will gain nothing from their actions.

[The Weeping Angel]

Can someone please explain to me the upside (If any) of Twitter?

Like any technology twitter is a tool, how you get the best out of it depends on how you use it. Whilst I'm aware of its downsides and yes there are plenty of tossers on there, there are also some very good commentators on there, plus it great for getting breaking news.

[Daley Mayle]

When microwaves came out the Daily Mail predicted the end of the oven. It didn't happen of course and the microwave became a useful adjunct to culinary skills for reheating hot drinks, warming through baked beans/ready dinners and pre-cooking potatoes prior to being finished off in the oven.

Twitter is the microwave of the second decade of the 21st century and useful for reheating tweets made by politicians/slebs when they were pissed ten years ago, warming up government policies and in the case of Dominic Cummings pre-releasing the findings of the Electoral Commission in the hope that it would dilute the DCMS report when it is officially published because, by then, it's old news.

[MisterMuncher]

I like Twitter. It has obvious and colossal down-sides, no doubt, but it can be a fun and engaging place to be. You just have to curate the shit out of your following list.

@stonekettle is a good one to follow for US stuff.

[MisterMuncher]

Just to add, it can occasionally lead to deep disappointment in people. Turns out some are dull as fuck, or worse, deeply mad.

I wish, for one, I'd never followed Chris Goss. Desert Rock's Morrissey.

[Biggus Robbus]

Mark Francois