[html] Should I use <i> tag for icons instead of <span>?

My guess: Because Twitter sees the need to support legacy browsers, otherwise they would be using the :before / :after pseudo-elements.

Legacy browsers don't support those pseudo-elements I mentioned, so they need to use an actual HTML element for the icons, and since icons don't have an 'exclusive' tag, they just went with the <i> tag, and all browsers support that tag.

They could've certainly used a <span>, just like you are (which is TOTALLY fine), but probably for the reason I mentioned above plus the ones mentioned by Quentin, is also why Bootstrap is using the <i> tag.

It's a bad practice when you use extra markup for styling reasons, that's why pseudo-elements were invented, to separate content from style... but when you see the need to support legacy browsers, sometimes you're forced to do these kind of things.

PS. The fact that icons start with an 'i' and that there's an <i> tag, is completely coincidental.