As I’ve probably expressed to some of you in the class, Twitter is my favorite social media platform. Twitter gives us a chance to openly seek information we choose to read and people like ourselves. I feel Twitter is also a better outlet for comedy, simple thoughts, and philosophies. It also encourages us to share more– I might tweet twenty times in a single day without it being abnormal, whereas I would never post twenty Facebook statuses in a day. Retweeting also allows us to promote ideas or people we like, and it is much more common to share other people’s ideas on Twitter than any other platform.
Some questions I have for Simon include how will these Twitter “stories” be published? Will they be a summary of total tweets with data associated or will they highlight individual or popular tweets? What topics will be considered? Will only world changing events be considered or will some analysis be on a more personal level? Are there any topics that would be considered better to avoid? Will these Twitter stories have any resemblance to Storify? Will any of these data analysis be simply for company use or will all analysis be public?
I have seen that some of you have already touched on the issue of privacy. In this case, I actually believe we cannot we too upset on how our public tweets are used, considering anyone on the world can already read them and they can be retweeted throughout all Twitter accounts, not only the ones that follow you. If it crosses into the realm of advertising, it could be considered an invasion of privacy. Also, how the stories are published and if specific names and tweets are used should also be considered.
Tweets too far in the past should also be considered on a content level because people’s ideas and opinions tend to change. I think it is a shame we are now concerned with monitoring everything carefully that we post online because it takes away from the fundamental greatness of Twitter. I think we should be allowed to post our opinions and even our jokes without fearing some serious repercussion. In one of my classes, I heard about a woman with an anonymous twitter account with sexual content on it being fired from her job. Is sex illegal? Must we all unify our values to gain employment? Shouldn’t our employers stay out of our personal lives to some extent? Don’t we have a right to express our opinions whether or not they are unpopular? Apparently not. We sit in fear of who will be watching, and in this case, I believe the it is more the government or employers taking invasive actions and not data journalists. However, I do not appreciate the agreement on Facebook that the company “owns” all your content. I’m not sure if Twitter has or will create a similar agreement, but I believe the social media companies themselves should be restricted in some ways on what is allowable to do with its users content.
Check out my Twitter is you guys have a Twitter!