How Accountable Are We For What We Post Online?

Social media has leveled the playing field. The days of shouting your anger about the injustices of the world aimlessly into the wind, without any accountability for the content of your words are long gone.When a single post can reach millions of people almost instantly, the person behind the post is largely responsible for the emotion caused by it. Accountability for the content of your words is no longer just for the celebrity, politician, musician or writer; it is for the average citizen to have to consider.

The world of football stood united in March 2012, in support of Fabrice Muamba after his heart stopped for 78 minutes, with the trend ‘Pray4Muamba’ attracting messages of support from all corners of the globe. However, not all tweets were of a positive nature. After coming home drunk from a night out, student Liam Stacey took to twitter to post abusive and racist messages. Within ten days, Stacey was convicted, sentenced to 56 days imprisonment. Some have argued that the length of this punishment is too severe in comparison to similar events; six days earlier Joshua Cryer was convicted for deliberately racially abusing ex-Footballer Stan Collymore, but was spared a jail sentence.

  

Publicising the anonymity of a victim of rape is carries the maximum punishment of a fine, which in November 2012 is just what nine people received. Ched Evans, a striker who played for Sheffield United, drew a large following due to his talents and celebrity status. When he was convicted of rape in April 2012, many took to twitter in outrage to name and abuse the 19 year old victim, in deference to their fallen hero. Her name appeared in over 6,000 tweets, with nine people receiving fines for their role in denigrating the victim, being fined a paltry £624 each.

 

On the other side of the courtroom, the identity of the two women who allowed their children to be abused by Ian Watkins, the front man of rock group Lostprophets, have been protected. At a glance, this appears to be an unnecessary injustice to protect two criminals who committed heinous and sickening crimes. This view was taken by Peaches Geldof, who posted their names on twitter after finding the information ‘on several websites’. However, since the injunction was actually to protect the infants involved, she could face legal action, even though the information was easily available (the Courts and Tribunals Service themselves published the names by mistake).

False accusations can be incredibly damaging to the reputation of an individual, and when such an accusation takes the form of printed word, it is called libel. November 2012 saw the release of an inflammatory BBC Newsnight documentary, incorrectly implicating an anonymous “Senior Conservative” in committing child abuse. Within hours, a social media witch-hunt gathered momentum, suggesting Lord McAlpine as the subject of the investigation. Sally Bercow was amongst the celebrities to stoke the fire, asking her followers ‘Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *innocent face*”. It soon emerged to be a case of mistaken identity (the victim had later been shown a picture of McAlpine, then realised his error). After being defamed, McAlpine sought to recoup and repair his reputation by entering into legal proceedings with people of influence (the 20 twitter users with 500 followers or more) who incorrectly implicated McAlpine, donating the compensation to various charities.

The ‘Joke Trial’ of 2010 was another example of a throwaway comment being examined. Paul Chambers, frustrated with cold weather affecting his travel plans, wrote:

This soon led to Chambers’ arrest and subsequent trial, where he was found guilty and ordered to pay £985 in total. He also lost his job because of the trial. After the following appeals and with public support from celebrities such as Steven Fry, it was ruled there was no ‘menace’ in his comments, therefore the conviction was quashed.

It is no doubt that we live in an increasingly documented, logged and scrutinised society, and it has become easier to prove and convict those adjudged to have committed offences via communication. It remains to be seen whether current legal documentation is relevant to today’s social media users, or if new rules and regulations are needed to be implemented to protect the free speech of the author.

Twitter Introduces the Illustrated Tweet for Android Tablets

Last week Twitter revealed its first app which was designed specifically for Android tablets. Although the site already had an app for Android users on smartphones, it had not be optimized for Android tablets until now. The app features a new landscape view which fills the screen with Tweets, conversations, Trends, accounts to follow and more. One of the exciting new features of this app is the ability to send an illustrated tweet - it is this feature which has the most potential to be built on by Twitter in their future developments.

From October 15, the Twitter for Android Tablets app became available on most Samsung tablets. Some of the key features of the new app are….


The Multi-screen view:

This lets you run Twitter and another app at the same time – allowing side by side viewing. You can Now read Tweets whilst browsing on the web, or streaming music and videos, allowing you the option to multi-task whilst on Twitter.

Twitter widget:

The app has introduced a widget that brings Twitter content directly to your tablet. It allows you to engage with Tweets, photos, and videos while also delivering breaking news, sport, music and photos which are relevant to your specific location.


Illustrated Tweets:

You can now use Twitter to create Illustrated Tweets, this can let you draw illustrations in a similar fashion to the use of Snapchat to draw on photos, and also lets you draw whole images as your tweet. The ability to do these doodles on your Samsung tablet has led to a number of #IllustratedTweet Twitter conversations between Samsung and Twitter. Twitter even released a Vine of an illustrated tweet of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge being created by an artist on a Samsung tablet, naming it a ‘brand new way to Tweet’. Here are a selection of their illustrated tweets to give you an insight into the way that this new feature works….

For now these illustrated tweets are just a fun way to share new content on Twitter. But if brands and advertisers start to pick up this new method of sharing images on Twitter, it could become an important new marketing tool, helping to send out original content to their audiences and helping to engage with their fans in a new and interesting manner. Samsung have already been making use of this new feature, which is exclusive to their tablets for the time being, so this could lead the way for other brands to follow, using their own Samsung tablets to create illustrated tweets to send out to followers.

However, at the moment there is the problem that this feature is only available for Samsung tablets, specifically the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition which it saw its debut with. Will this feature soon be seen on other brands of tablets too?

What do you think?

Do you think that the new Twitter app for Android tablets will start a new trend with illustrated tweets? Will this feature be developed for mobile users of Twitter as well?

Is there potential for a ‘superpower’ social media site?

With so many people having more than one social media network on which they post and keep updated with their friends, it can be hard to keep track of all the latest developments. Does this provide the space for a potential merger between social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook to create one ‘superpower’ social media? Or are the main social media networks too far developed to be able to join with each other?

Image – www.insidefacebook.com

When Twitter was still a start-up and emerging as a new social network some rumoured about the potential for Facebook to buy Twitter, however, with the way that both social media sites have now established themselves individually, the potential joining forces has disappeared. There are a number of reasons why it does not seem feasible for Twitter and Facebook to join forces, primarily because they are fundamentally different social media networks – used for different purposes, attracting different audiences and different formats.

Facebook is a site used to keep in contact with friends and family, in which you have a network of people who you know and would be happy to call a ‘friend’ and therefore would share pictures and more personal news with. On the other hand, Twitter provides a level of anonymity – you can use a username and create an alias if you wish – this detaches from the personal nature of social networking where you are connecting with friends. On Twitter you may have followers who you personally do not know – it can be a way to follow and receive updates from your favourite celebrity, your favourite sports side or companies relevant to your professional work life. Subsequently the nature of what you choose to share on these sites will vary. These fundamental differences between Twitter and Facebook therefore mean that it would be difficult to combine the two without confusion of what content you would choose to post. The reason people choose to have accounts for multiple social network sites is because they use them for different purposes – therefore there is little point in trying to merge their use.

Not only is the purpose of these social media platforms essentially different, their communication styles and formatting are at odds. The short and snappy sentences that are used on Twitter, with a maximum of 140 characters per post, are far from the 420 character potential with which you can create a Facebook status. Although both have the similar options of a ‘Like’ or ‘Favourite’, Twitter also features the ability to retweet (RT@) and to reply (@). Even though Facebook has taken some inspiration from Twitter by introducing the hashtag (#) on Facebook, this has been done as a way for users to follow specific topic of conversation within a social network’s stream of user comments. Due to the privacy of most Facebook accounts, this still provides a slightly different service to the one which is offered on Twitter. The addition of hashtags to Facebook will make it easier for friends to see what other friends are talking about via topic, acting as a sorting mechanism so one can filter the information that they really want to see on Facebook. Facebook called it a “first step” in their announcement of hashtags – indicating that there may well be further developments to sort how you view information on Facebook. However, some may argue that this change has come in response to people using hashtags in their Facebook posts, implying that they post similar content to what they would on Twitter, but this still does not suggest that the two sites could function together efficiently if they were merged.

Image – www.insidefacebook.com

For those who do wish to combine their Twitter and Facebook feed and make it easier to access their tweets and status updates in one place it is possible to add Twitter to your Facebook page, this enables you to share your tweets to your Facebook friends. However, this does rely on you using Facebook and Twitter in the same way, for instance the majority of your Facebook friends will not be interested in your tweets relating to what you are working on in your professional life. Therefore, there are still barriers to whether Facebook and Twitter could be used in the same way.

What do you think?

Would there ever be potential for Twitter and Facebook to merge? What do you use these social networks for, do you post similar content on both?

5 Tips on How to Develop a Twitter Marketing Strategy

You'll find as you make plans to start or grow your business you'll need to have a strategy for each tool you use. Twitter especially, needs to have a strategy all of its own as it is a unique micro-blogging platform.

As all the social media platforms are different - you'll find it almost impossible to use them in the same way. This is due to the different audiences who want different results from using individual social media sites like, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Tip #1
Your first step should be deciding on why you want to use Twitter in the first place.

You'll find it's a BIG mistake to try to use Twitter to just promote your products and services as it really is a 'tool of engagement' so it should be a mixture of promotion and social chit-chat with some useful tips and information.

In fact, Twitter users normally feel they are actually connecting with a 'real' person and not an automated 'bot' or mechanical tool.

Tip #2
If you have employees (or plan to in the future... think big!) encourage them to Tweet during the day, providing they are showing your company in a positive light and are also engaging and interacting with followers.

They can do this by answering customers queries or by sending out coupons, or monitoring competitions, etc. Let's face it, we're all human beings and we like talking to other people before we make our buying decisions.

It's fine for them to add some personal Tweets, as long as they show themselves (and your company) in a positive light, of course.

Tip #3
Twitter etiquette usually assumes that you always follow those who follow you right back. However, you may want to monitor your followers as often the spammers are active too.

It's also important that you are proactive in searching for people who are in your target market, so you can follow them and hopefully they will follow you right back. If they do, remember to always be respectful and post relevant content if you want them to keep following you.

Don't be tempted to become bland and use Twitter as just a promotional tool, as people will soon stop caring about your Tweets and unfollow you.

Tip #4
You always want to be monitoring anyone who is talking about your products or services - this is a great way for FREE marketing research. Understanding their expectations and what they desire will help you build a strong relationship with them.

Once you know them well enough you'll know what keywords will get more response from them.

Tip #5
Once you have made up your mind to use Twitter then you really do have to commit to using it regularly. Plan your strategy carefully and aim for a happy medium, sharing good useful information and a little about what you are doing in your personal life (without going overboard).

You'll soon find your rhythm once you get started. Remember to always evaluate how you're doing with your strategies and tactics on a regular basis by studying the responses you get.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7897189