this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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twitter is an outdated phone app that was built for SMS back when text messages had a limit. it should have had a predictable lifespan, but now it's become a fake-ai-assisted culture war battleground that's run by the world's biggest idiot and oligarch.
i'm having trouble following what the fuck you're having "serious" trouble following. and i'm starting to think you aren't asking this question in good faith.
Twitter definitely was not any attempt to emulate the function of SMS.
I can't tell if you don't know what SMS is for, or what Twitter was for.
where am i wrong? twitter - as i understand - started as a phone-based application which had a 140-character limitation. where did that limit come from?
It did not. It took 4 years before they launched an official mobile app. The char limit was solely a marketing ploy.
Think you replied to the wrong level comment :)
You are absolutely right! I will delete and re-reply. Thank you!
you're right, i'm wrong. i addressed it in another comment.
The limit was there because in its early incarnation it allowed post-submission via SMS. SMS already had the 140-character limit for other technical reasons due to the GSM networks.
Apparently somewhere here people have finally convinced you that you are entirely wrong about the origin of twitter.
But the word you've been looking for (which also describes Mastodon, Calkey, etc) is microblog.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging
I thought we were talking about Bluesky here. Sure, Twitter can go die.
goodnight, comrade.