Thursday 26 January 2012

Twitter - Designed for Twits?

Never has a piece of technology been so aptly named.

Tom Watson joins what is becoming a ever increasing list of politicians who have had to make a grovelling apology for a tweet. And no doubt there will be more.

This time it was an intern who was responsible for the foul deed of posting a tweet which appears to have been inappropriate. No doubt there has been a slap on the wrist followed by a punishment exercise, and possibly a letter home to the parents.

You would think that politicians would be intelligent (erm.....) enough to be extremely careful about controlling their tweets, as well as keeping twits off their Twitter. Tom admits he should have logged off, but alas, technology that is easy to use is also easy to abuse or be abused.

Thousands of famous and millions of not-so-famous people have set up Twitter accounts, with some boasting a considerable amounts of followers. Lady GaGa apparently has the biggest share with her monsters. Twitter it seems is a great way to let the world know what you are doing this fine day, although tweets about coffee and a donut make Big Brother seem as exciting as a Hollywood blockbuster.

Twitter has a tweet limit of 140 characters. Plenty to wreck a career it seems.

I don't know why they bother. There are enough twits around politics without giving them a vehicle to twitter even more.

Maybe we should have a First Minister's Questions by Twitter. At least with the character limit it would stop the blawbags (feel free to adjust the spelling) and make things a bit more interesting.

1 comment:

  1. Yes, but on the other hand it does seem to be quite a good debating tool if used appropriately.

    Been following some of the Scottish commentariat's Twitter accounts recently and there are some quite good debates going.

    And thanks for the heads up - I'll have to start following Lady Gaga right away ;0)

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