Twitter maintains a collection of celebrities, politicians, and businessmen who use the site to post their each and every thought, despite its recent struggles with reaching a wider audience.

Most recently, Kanye West has been profusely tweeting, insisting Bill Cosby is innocent of all his criminal allegations:

Whether Kanye West actually believes his claim is irrelevant. Voicing so controversial an opinion as this gets him in the news and stirs up debate on Twitter. It is also a free promotion for the social network, as many news sources cite the tweet when covering pop culture.

In addition to Kanye West’s musings, there has been an ongoing feud between Martin Shkreli of  Turing Pharmaceuticals and Ghostface Killah of the Wu Tang Clan over a two million dollar rap album and  Shkreli’s 5000% price hike on a drug that treats parasitic infections. The battle is both bizarre and childish; each side has released a video trashing the other in the style of gang rappers. Shkreli has also used Twitter to vent his frustrations with Congress’ ongoing investigations of fraud against him.

Twitter’s strange role in pop culture does not end there though. In early January, rap artist BoB stirred up national ridicule on the social network  with claims that he had proof that the earth was flat. Widespread backlash followed and even pop-astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson weighed in against the insistent rapper:

NDT

Twitter has also been a platform for political rants, most notably from Donald Trump, who recently declared on the site that the Iowa Republican caucus was rigged in favor of Ted Cruz:

Trump

In the wake of all of these incidents comes Twitter’s newest update: placing the “best” tweets first. Is this then, Twitter’s niche? Is Twitter meant to be more of a source of entertainment that a true social network?

Images via Twitter.