The importance is that every free and democratic nation in the world has its’ policies influenced by the loudest voices on Twitter. So if Twitter amplifies an idea it becomes reality.
I’d say it’s just a reflection of us, not our compass.
Sometimes it seemed like most of the news coverage of Trump consisted of news anchors reading his tweets on air. His tweets got a lot of the people into DC on the 6th to hear his speech in the first place.
Twitter is not just a distraction, sometimes it is the news.