When Twitter was first becoming big, the most important story was how Twitter was empowering the Arab Spring and giving a voice to the voiceless. The retweet bu

When Twitter was first becoming big, the most important story was how Twitter was empowering the Arab Spring and giving a voice to the voiceless. The retweet button was a part of that; it allowed people to quickly and easily share vital information. The world was kind of taken off-guard by the fact that this relatively tiny, fail-whale-laden platform could enable freedom and resistance against totalitarian governments. We, and by "we" I mean the collective internet, didn't really foresee that same platform becoming a platform for hatred and disinformation, or a tool of those same totalitarian governments. Maybe we should have, but there's a problem with that: hindsight is easy, but proactively thinking like a shithead is difficult. Creating the retweet button isn't a matter of conscience, it's a matter of not foreseeing the shitty things shitty people would do with that tool.