It took so little time for Elon Musk to obliterate Twitter and create a place of hatred and horror. He turned something valuable into a megaphone for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, anti-Semites, gay-bashers, and anyone else momentarily serving his scattershot right-wing agenda.

With the entity formerly known as Twitter vanishing in the rearview mirror, I offer two articles from the early days, when we wondered what it was and what it might become. A global conversation? A mosaic of communities and interests? Perhaps you remember.

From 2013: A Vast Confusion

From 2015: Let Twitter Be Twitter

Now I hope the open social web (sometimes thought of as Mastodon or the Fediverse) will rise to become what Twitter hoped to be, free of advertising, unwelcoming of trolls. That’s how it seems so far: I’m there as @JamesGleick@zirk.us.

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