karl
September 5th, 2012, 08:46 AM
Recent events on Twitter show it is now time to consider the unintended consequences of our very public online conversations, says Tom Chatfield.
Twitter restores writer's account
Twitter restores the account of a journalist following a user backlash sparked by his suspension from the social network.
“Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often,” wrote the 19th Century author Mark Twain. Although he courted more than his fair share of controversies, Twain lived at a time when public and published words were possessed by a minority. Mere talk – those mundane conversations and concerns his wit so carefully skewered – existed far from worldly words and actions.
Eleven decades after the author’s death, such boundaries are less certain.
Consider just a handful of the cases and controversies currently involving Twitter. Thanks to an allegedly racist tweet, Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand has been charged by the Football Association with improper conduct. Legal action is being brought against Twitter in the US in order to make it reveal the identity of the person behind a spoof account satirising the chief executive of a newspaper group. British journalist Guy Adams was suspended from using the site following American broadcaster NBC’s complaints over his tweeting, although he was reinstated after a public outcry. Ugly, abusive threats to the Olympic diver Tom Daley led to the arrest of a teenager. Twitter’s own chief executive recently called some of the abuse and heckling that takes place on his site “horrifying”. And the US government – among others – has made many hundreds of user information requests to the service for its own reasons.
See full story here: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120801-is-twitter-the-end-of-small-talk/1
Twitter restores writer's account
Twitter restores the account of a journalist following a user backlash sparked by his suspension from the social network.
“Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often,” wrote the 19th Century author Mark Twain. Although he courted more than his fair share of controversies, Twain lived at a time when public and published words were possessed by a minority. Mere talk – those mundane conversations and concerns his wit so carefully skewered – existed far from worldly words and actions.
Eleven decades after the author’s death, such boundaries are less certain.
Consider just a handful of the cases and controversies currently involving Twitter. Thanks to an allegedly racist tweet, Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand has been charged by the Football Association with improper conduct. Legal action is being brought against Twitter in the US in order to make it reveal the identity of the person behind a spoof account satirising the chief executive of a newspaper group. British journalist Guy Adams was suspended from using the site following American broadcaster NBC’s complaints over his tweeting, although he was reinstated after a public outcry. Ugly, abusive threats to the Olympic diver Tom Daley led to the arrest of a teenager. Twitter’s own chief executive recently called some of the abuse and heckling that takes place on his site “horrifying”. And the US government – among others – has made many hundreds of user information requests to the service for its own reasons.
See full story here: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120801-is-twitter-the-end-of-small-talk/1