I read an editorial in my school’s newspaper today, written by my friend/editor.
Twitter: New social network acts as the Ultimate Stalker Tool.
Oh boy. Sounds like my friend could get a job at The Daily Mail.
So I wrote this email to her/the paper:
First off, nice sensationalist headline: “The ultimate stalker tool” indeed. I’m interested to see why you think this is the case, but we’ll get to that later.
You wrote that Facebook doesn’t text or email you every time someone updates their status, “but Twitter, bothering people with annoying messages from a barrage of people you don’t really care about … that is completely unnecessary.”
What in Barack Obama’s balls are you talking about?
First off, you select who you want to follow on Twitter. If you’re following a bunch of people on Twitter “you don’t really care about,” then you’re doing it wrong.
As far as Twitter alerting people on their cell phones or via “irritating e-mails,” again, I’m not sure what the heck you’re talking about. I’ve been using Twitter since March 2007, and I’ve never received a notification from Twitter—via email or text message, annoying or otherwise—alerting me to the fact that someone has updated their Twitter. Have you ever actually USED Twitter? There isn’t even an option to have these sorts of notifications sent to you! So as far as I know, the thing you’re complaining about does not exist.
NOTE: I have since been corrected on this. The setting for this was, strangely enough, not on the “notifications” page of Twitter’s settings.
You ask if there is a difference between Twitter and text messages, saying each can be “blasted to a certain number of recipients” (that’s true for Twitter, if you have a private profile, allowing you to select who can follow you).
“Each one can be sent to one receiver.”
Not true. When you update your Twitter, you update your Twitter, and anyone who is following you is going to see it. Twitter’s website does contain a direct messaging system, but that is separate and unrelated to your actual profile/tweets. You can use @reply’s, but again, those are visible to anyone and everyone who can view your profile.
“And yet, a text message doesn’t require you to go to another Web site.”
Neither does Twitter. I can update my profile directly from my phone, via text message. In fact, the majority of updates I text from my phone are going to Twitter as well as other people’s phones.
When you talk about Twitter’s privacy settings, you say to adjust the settings “so you can avoid at least some of the crazies.” Hold on a second. What crazies? You don’t even go on to explain what you mean.
You call it “the ultimate stalker tool” in your headline, but then never go on to say in your editorial why this is.
You say “But Twitter shouldn’t be used by every person on the planet,” but you don’t say why.
Were you actually planning on backing up your claims and opinions with examples or reasons, or did you just feel like typing out this blind screed for the heck of it? Is your entire editorial nothing more than an error-ridden straw man fallacy written by someone who has not once used the very service they’re deriding? Signs point to yes.
Sweet Jesus. Stick to writing things you know about.
This would be like me writing a column about how hockey sucks because field goals are a cheap way to score home runs, and how there are too many outfielders on the court; anyone who knows even a modicum of information about hockey would think I sound like an ignorant prick. But that wouldn’t be enough for me, I’d then go and title the column “Hockey: It Will Give Your Children Cancer, Rape Your Churches and Burn Your Women.”
And then we’d run it in the paper, apparently.
