Twitter is a political and sociological problem—a problem rooted in conflicts over values—not an engineering problem. It requires a different set of skills.

“One day you’re beating up on Facebook for leaving up too much hate speech, and the next day, you’re beating up on them for taking down too many legitimate ads.”

That split between the big audience on Facebook and the influential audience on Twitter was instantly obvious to anyone in any newsroom who ever cared to look. Sicha is right to note that Twitter never sent any amount of meaningful traffic to any website — it was Facebook traffic that warped most digital media executives into futile aspirations of ... See more