Posts For Class: Twitter Ethics

- How do media use Twitter for "good"?
- How do media combat/reach readers who don't know the difference between gossip and genuine reporting?

Twitter is a tricky technology. I've used it on this blog as a documentation of the emotional roller coaster that I ride when I watch the Sox, and it's therefore helped me to create what I feel are some of my funniest posts thus far. On the other side of the coin, however, lies the recent Tiger Woods debacle.

We've all heard about Tiger's car crash, and the media storm that followed. There have been reports of his infidelity, abuse of alcohol, addiction to prescription medications and survival of domestic abuse; about the only thing that Tiger has NOT been accused of this week is fathering seventeen illegitimate children while in Argentina with Bobo the Epileptic Hobo. In short, the media has had a field day with something that, in my opinion, should have remained private.

What bothers me is not that a tree hit Tiger's car at two in the morning. That happens all the time, both to high-profile celebrities and to Joe Schmoe. What really bothers me is that ALL we know is that he was in a car accident. The rest--his cheating, boozing, pill-popping, et al--has thus far been speculation. This is where Twitter gets dangerous. Tweets happen at the drop of a pin, and you can write just about anything you want. This phenomenon has sparked the usual paparazzi-type speculation about Tiger's accident into a flame of debauchery and drugs surrounding one of sport's most pristine figures.

The problem is that people believe what they want to hear and, for reasons unbeknown to me, love celebrity gossip. When an athlete who is arguably the face of American sports gets in a car crash at two in the morning, people are going to talk and people are going to make up shit to legitimize why he was leaving his house when he should have been in bed. That's human nature, and that's the problem with Twitter. It gives everyone a forum, including people who really don't deserve one.

Yes, Twitter can be used for good; it helped expose the recent Iranian election scandal, for example. There can be no doubt that it's one of the fastest ways for news to reach the masses. There needs to be some barrier, however, between Tweets about how much my Red Bull cost in the Denver airport last week ($4.75) and something that actually carries some sort of news implication. I realize that this would mean the Iranian situation would not have had as much of an immediate impact, but that was a story that would have broken anyway because there were hard facts. The Tiger situation has yet to produce any real evidence that alcohol or pills were involved, and Twitter has only served to cause every cable news station in America to speculate. That's not news, folks.

I realize that the barrier would go against everything that Twitter stands for; it's a free forum for anyone to post whatever the hell he or she wants. At the same time, however, we must look at Twitter and realize that it IS a forum for EVERYone. Does EVERYone have a press pass that allows them to get the hard facts about Tiger's car crash? No. Then should we be taking our news from a forum where the vast majority of users really have no idea what they're talking about? No. Let Tweeters Tweet and let reporters report. I don't think we can take news seriously when it's on an open forum like Twitter; there's simply too much uneducated bullshit blurring the lines on the site.

Finally, to paraphrase Chris Crocker: Leave Tiger ALONE!!!!