One of the paradoxes of social organisations is that the more egalitarian they are on the surface, the more hierarchical they are underneath. Thus, the House of Commons is more class-bound than the House of Lords, the Labour party more rigidly stratified than the Conservatives, and comprehensive schools more cliquey than Eton College. Of nothing is this more true than Twitter.
Twitter, as I am sure you know, is the social networking site of the moment. What Facebook was to the autumn of 2007, Twitter is to the spring of 2009. Soon, you will not be able to open a newspaper or switch on the radio without hearing about it. If the zeitgeist was on Mastermind, Twitter would be its special subject.
Not all social networking sites purport to be egalitarian. ASmallWorld, for instance, has been dubbed ‘snobster’ on account of its invitation-only policy, while LinkedIn caters to high-flying professionals.
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