I TOOK a dip in Twitter this week, and understand even better how Labor got flushed away in a sewer of hate.

How could Labor - and many journalists - disastrously mistake Twitter for the real world?

On Tuesday I was persuaded by an editor to go on ScribbleLIVE to answer questions sent by readers through Twitter and Facebook.

This news electrified the Twittersphere. For hours the topic trended as Leftists, many anonymous, competed to ask me - the Great Satan of Conservatism - the worst, silliest or most abusive questions on the #askbolt hashtag.

Here's one example, from a writer hiding under the borrowed name of Liberal senator Cory Bernardi: "Should we execute refugees and urinate on their charred corpse?"

Fairfax newspapers thought this was sensational news.

"Bolt becomes a bit of a Twitter hash," announced one report, which shot to the top of the Most Read section of The Age.

"Andrew Bolt #askbolt hashtag unleashes a Twitter storm," declared another report, which noted that someone calling themselves "Dabzi" asked: "How does it feel to be a nut and a bolt at the same time?"

Gosh, hold the presses. No, wait, they're slowing already at Fairfax and no wonder, if recycling playground taunts by anonymous tweeters now passes for news reporting.

In fact, to be attacked on Twitter is no news to a conservative.

Twitter skews hard to the Left - ask Bernardi - and half a dozen Twitter accounts are held by critics pretending to be me.

Only yesterday, ABC book critic Marieke Hardy tweeted that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was a "bats..t regressive buttbag". Earlier, she tweeted he was a "douchebag".

As you see, Twitter also seems to bring out the worst in users.

Maybe it's the relative youth of tweeters, and the anonymity of many. Maybe it's because hate tends to sell best in the look-at-me Twittersphere.

Or maybe it's because Twitter appeals to the impulsive sensation junkies eager to instantly broadcast their most idle thought, and unwilling to read or write more than 140 characters at a time.

But here's the bizarre thing: this is the audience Labor thought could save it.

This is the crowd Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tried to impress by tweeting a picture of his shaving cut to his 1.4 million followers, thus confusing the magpie attention of tweeters with respect from very real and unimpressed voters.

But Julia Gillard as prime minister had an even more fatal attraction to Twitter.

Her infamous misogyny speech last year - falsely branding Abbott a woman-hater - was rightly seen at first by most commentators as a hate-filled rant that would appal many Australians.

But Gillard's communications director, John McTernan, eventually convinced press gallery journalists it was a success because it had gone viral on social media, including Twitter.

He had Channel 9's Laurie Oakes claiming: "It was clear within days the PM's gender-based declaration of war had made quite an impact with many Australian women.

"The way it went viral via the internet was a significant factor in ensuring it registered as a powerful moment."

And so Gillard, convinced by tweets and blog posts, doubled down on her politics of division, pitting women against men, workers against bosses.

STIRRING hatred may indeed light up the Twittersphere but it makes the world outside your window feel sick. Look at Labor's vote today.

True, Twitter didn't invent this culture of abuse among tribalists of the Left, but I suspect it normalised nastiness.

How else to explain why the Sydney Morning Herald, once a paper of record, now publishes faked comments from Abbott, put in his mouth by columnists who mistake abuse for wit?

Columnist Mike Carlton, for instance, last week pretended Abbott told him one candidate had "great t.ts" and while he still "wouldn't want to be in a dunny alone with a homo" he "wouldn't think of punching them out any more".

But it's no surprise if Twitter's culture has spilled out of the internet sewers and now floods media offices.

No surprise, when Channel 10's Paul Bongiorno retweets Mike Carlton who retweets Rudd's daughter, Jessica, who retweets Channel 10's Charlie Pickering who retweets blogger Mia Freedman who retweets the ABC's Leigh Sales who retweets her boss, Mark Scott, who retweets his presenter, Jonathan Green, who retweets John McTernan who retweets the ABC's Mark Colvin who retweets Marieke Hardy who retweets Mike Carlton who . . .

And on it flows, a steady stream of hate, flushing the feckless with it. Labor, too.