Don, a commercial boat captain in Sarasota, Florida, wasn’t on Twitter before the coronavirus pandemic. Recently, though, he decided to join; after weeks of struggling with his state’s unemployment insurance system, signing up for Twitter was a last-ditch attempt to make progress. “I googled how I can get ahold of the state, just looking for answers, and I saw some Twitter posts popping up,” he told me.

Don, 47, and his wife both work for the same company and were laid off on March 18. They’ve spent weeks trying to navigate Florida’s unemployment system, dealing with crashing websites and blocked phone lines, sometimes calling hundreds of times a day. Three weeks ago, his wife was finally deemed eligible to start receiving benefits, but he’s still waiting. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” he said.

The coronavirus crisis, which so far has […]