In the social media revolution Twitter has taken a breathtaking role. The Arab Spring may still have sprung without cellphones, but the rapid ability to communicate has been an enormous aid to coordinating protests. But it seems that much of Twitter is for twits, to whit media narcissists who think the public lives to follow their quotidian banality and the full range of bigots who use Twitter to spew out hate. Take the Turkish phrase “En Ä°yi Kürt Ölü Kürt” (“The best Kurd is a dead Kurd.”), which trended on August 9, as reported on Al Jazeera. The trend came after news coverage of an ambush of a Turkish military bus by suspected Kurdish separatists. But the anti-Kurdish sentiments may also have been heightened by Turkey’s decision in June to allow the teaching of Kurdish in schools.

Part of the trend was the response by Kurds who were angry at the racist post. One noted that Turkey’s Gold Medal at the Olympics actually came to an athlete that many consider Kurdish. Another returned the disfavor: “Turks are Aryan by blood and Turks mentally. They are in the middle of Aryan people and soon they will be melting down among Aryan people. No more Turks in the region.” Mud slinging has no doubt been around for as long as people have been able to communicate, but the digital age has created the opportunity for massive mud slides with the potential to instigate yet more violence.

The phrase itself is of the fill-in-the-blank variety. In 1869 General Philip Sheridan met with fifty native chiefs at Fort Cobb in “Indian Territory,” which is now Oklahoma. The Comanche chief Toch-a-way is reported to have introduced himself to Sheridan saying “Me Toch-a-way, me good Indian.” Sheridan is said to have replied, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.” This was transformed into “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” the kind that most Hollywood films showed in the first part of the last century.

It seems another old saw will need updating now: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, unless they trend on Twitter.”