Cite a Twitter conversation? Let's assume that while researching and writing a paper you find a Twitter conversation between domain experts that is particularly useful for you. 


Given that it is not the sources that these experts list, but the spontaneous grouping of these sources for an argument that is useful, wouldn't it be dishonest to find sources that verify this information and then just cite the papers without citing the experts that led you down this line of thinking? 
Is it acceptable to cite a conversation from a social media source, such as Twitter, in an academic paper?
I think that this can be clarified with a thought experiment.  Let's say that rather than observing a Twitter conversation (or other social media), you were part of a three-way discussion with the two experts in the hallway at a conference.  During the course of the conversation, some key facts and sources are mentioned, and this inspires you to look them up.

Would you cite the hallway conversation?  Absolutely not.  At most, you might mention your source of inspiration in an acknowledgement, if it was particularly important to your work.

Likewise, I think that you should feel no obligation to cite a conversation that you observed on Twitter, which is effectively the same thing in an electronic hallway conversation.  (You can, of course, cite Twitter as a primary source, e.g., if you want to give an example of Twitter conversations, but that doesn't seem to be particularly germane to this question).