My own misgivings about Jeong’s tweets have less to do with their substance than with their often snarky tone, occasional meanness, and sheer number: 103,000 over some nine years, averaging about 31 tweets a day. (Donald Trump only averages 11.)

But that’s the way we live now — unfiltered — and many of us, including me, have been late to appreciate Twitter’s narcotic power to bring out the worst in ourselves. Undigested thoughts. Angry retorts. Jokes that don’t land. Points made in haste. All the mental burps and inner screams that wisely used to be left unspoken — or, if spoken, little heard and seldom recorded.

That’s a reason to treat social media approximately the way we do opioids: with utmost caution. But it’s also a reason to temper our judgments about people based on the things they say on social media. The person you are drunk or stoned is not the person you are — at least not the whole person. Neither is the person you are the one who’s on Twitter.

I’ve spent the last few days reading some of Jeong’s longer-form journalism. It’s consistently smart and interesting and as distant from some of her more notorious social-media output as a brain is from a bottom. But you’ll struggle to find her articles on an internet search, because her serious work is overwhelmed by the controversy her tweets have generated.

Is it ultimately her fault for writing those ugly tweets? Yes. Does it represent the core truth of who she is? I doubt it. Anyone who has been the victim of the social-media furies knows just how distorting and dishonest those furies can be. I’m routinely described on social media as an Arab-hating, climate-denying, pedophile apologist. It’s enough for me that my family, friends and employer know I’m none of those things. God save us all when those pillars crumble in the face of our new culture of denunciation.

So welcome, Sarah, to The Times. I look forward to reading you with interest irrespective of agreement. I trust you’ll extend the same good faith to all of your new colleagues. Only through such faith do the people, institutions, and nations thrive.

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