The credibility of Twitter

The creation of social networking sites has allowed individuals to create profiles of themselves online and interact with other user profiles. But as is the case with all things online, there is total animosity – you never know who you could be talking to online. That is the issue being faced by Twitter, a social networking website which offers microblogging services.

Owens (2009) writes about the frequent occurrences of imposters on the site and the question of whether or not journalists should be allowed to quote users of the site for the very same reason. A new law in the state of California prevents people from impersonating others online with the intention to harm another person – so there is now a legal way of dealing with these impersonators (Gaudin, 2010). New York and Texas are soon to pass this law as well.

While this does take a step in preventing fraud on the internet, it still brings up the question of whether there should be a new code of journalism ethics to encompass the credibility of digital media. In fact, the standards editor of the New York Times has declared that no Times reporter is allowed to use the word ‘tweet’ as it has not yet acquired the status of standard English (English, 2010). English (2010) goes on to describe how a report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development stated that the information on the Internet has the potential to spread rumours and incorrect information.

Not only that, information on Twitter is not exactly complete as it has a maximum of 140 characters. It can be concluded that while Twitter has become an excellent platform of communication, and that steps have been taken to grade the authenticity of its celebrity users, for the time being it is better for journalists to avoid using it as a source of information for their reporting.

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References

English, K 2010, ‘English: Is Twitter a threat to journalistic credibility?’, Star 19 June, viewed 13 November 2010, http://www.thestar.com/opinion/publiceditor/article/825223--english-is-twitter-a-threat-to-journalistic-credibility.

Gaudin, S 2010, Facebook and Twitter acquire new bill that kicks out imposters, Techworld, viewed 13 November 2010, http://news.techworld.com/security/3239081/facebook-and-twitter-acquire-new-bill-that-kicks-out-imposters/?olo=rss.

Owens, S 2009, How celebrity imposters hurt Twitter’s credibility, PBS, viewed 12 November 2010, http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2009/02/how-celebrity-imposters-hurt-twitters-credibility051.html.