I remember when I would check an online forum for a professional I was in once a week. The consensus that would develop among about 20-30 participants became the standard that had to be argued against regardless of how well or poorly (as in logic and data) the consensus was established because it had been voiced by those who were always quick to jump in to the discussion. You'd have 4 or 5 posts all saying the same thing before anyone even would ask a question.

When I noticed this trend, after a while, I developed a hypothesis: these guys are all working in IT in some way and they were on the computer all day. When I suggested that the assumptions they all were making together had more to do with them all being computer jockeys of some kind and that the views of most of our field were underrepresented because they were not on the computer all day and many (at that time) didn't really use them still. They didn't really accept that conclusion based mainly on the idea that they thought they were really no different than the other people in this field even if they were on computers much of the day.

The assumption that "we the normal ones, we're just like everyone else" is a bad assumption and it is manipulated by those who know they are not. Especially when it is so easy to divide the world into us'es and thems. This isn't just that twitter is a cesspool but the fact that it is filled with bots and fake accounts and sock puppets matters in that poll. But also, twitter creates a "norm" that people fall into and have to argue against regardless of how poorly that new norm is established. It's why lawyers of all types, judges, prosectors, defense attorneys, corporate lawyers, property lawyers, entertainment lawyers, experts in maritime law or bird law, all make hell on earth for those who are not in their fields regardless of if they can see it or not. It's why real estate is such a crooked field (Glen Gary Glen Ross is based on his experiences in that field) where inspectors and agents and everyone in the field has to play along to get more work, and the client (the mark, the sucker, the noob) comes and goes through their whole industry maybe 2 or three times in their lives.

The difference is that twitter does nothing, it's gossip mostly only occassionally passing as sharing information or ideas. It might be that it can only descend into what it has become.