Protected tweets in Twitter & viewing the social media landscape

I was reading an article this morning, and while the author does make some good points regarding prudent paths of adult supervision, she also presented a large inaccuracy in the technology of Twitter. She quipped, “At the forefront is Twitter, a social platform with no privacy settings that instantly updates followers…” Twitter actually has a sizeable privacy setting – you can turn everything “off” or “invisible” to everyone, save those individuals you have accepted as followers. The technical term is having “protected tweets”. Do I think that would have made a difference in the scenario she presented? Probably not, because the 100 people were most likely following each other on twitter.

It’s also unfortunate that she chose sensationalistic wording like, “"It might seem cool to tweet that you're having a party, or to put it on Facebook, but it's a 100-per-cent guarantee that it will get out of control.”

100%? Really?

Because I’ve utilized both these regularly on a number of events, both personal and corporate, without it ever going “out of control”. I would dare say it’s not twitter or facebook that does it – it’s the person using it. A little moderation in chosen words and technical accuracy would have helped this article greatly. And with 14 million twitterers (“tweeps” or “twitterati”) in the U.S. alone (Nielson Online, March ’08), accuracy should be especially paramount. There’s probably no need to bring up the 200 million facebook users….

In today’s world I can appreciate anyone who puts themselves on the line journalistically. I simply ask them to do so accurately. And leave the sensationalism at home. I need to read what things actually are, not what they could be in every possible worst scenario; offered as the probable.

Anyone who has delved – really delved – into the social media landscape should have discovered this: Social media networking sites of significance are a microcosm of the entire world wide web. In early internet days it was frequently “fire and brimstone” talk about all the dangers of going on line because one can encounter distasteful material. But we got used to it. And we learned that “we go over here where the content is good and safe, and not over there where the perverts may be…”. Sound familiar? Like the internet, social media is a tool. It needs to be dealt with in the same fashion we have become accustomed to employing with the larger world wide web. Go here, not here. Simply calling out the evils that lurk is, to me, only a part of the story.

7 things to know about Twitter