@lapis i would say yes but probably only if you are citing a thread/movement with some official involvement in the thing - e.g. the twitter of some rando not so much, the twitter of a professor who teaches subject at a university definitely yes. that i think will end up being your way in to "legitimize" the citation, just going on gut feeling.
(i'd assume that you'd cite a masto toot like a tweet. fortunately all of this shit has already been worked out - https://gouldguides.carleton.edu/citation/social )
@lapis (not actually a proper academic myself since i ended up disabled right after graduation lol, but that's the gut feeling of the direction i'd go in. my dad worked in academia for a very long time and although he's retired now, i'm thinking of "what is something that'd he'd accept and consider a valid thing to cite".)