In the age of technology where hundreds of millions of people use twitter in the form of business, news, comedy, politics, and personal use.
We live in an era where the technology that we have created has made our society into having access to quick, easy information at the touch of a button that gives us the immediate answers that we “need.” Our growing greed may even be willing to accept ill-informed sources or content lacking in research.
These 140 characters or less of concise information have no merit to them, I have found, after researching them myself. Here are a few examples of tweets that I have come across on my twitter feed:
From the mistake of a simple photo, where History in Pictures twitter account tweeted a photo of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet behind the scene of Titanic. The caption along the top of the photo stated, “Snoop’s senior photo, 1989.” Although this is a small, obvious mistake, the tweet has not yet been deleted.
Another example is shown in a case of misappropriation through a tweet by the twitter account Regina George, which had been favorited by over one thousand people within two days of posting the tweet. The way the picture is conceived, the tweet shows photos of a girl visibly upset with her supposed prom date who was taking prom pictures with another girl. The caption above the photo says, “Prom was over for him before it even started.” However, this situation is misconceived. When I first saw this photo, I had to do a double take. The girl’s actual prom date is the guy right behind her in the second photo. I know this because the guy behind the girl is my cousin and his girlfriend.
“College tuition in France costs $400,” was tweeted a few months ago by the twitter account Common White Girl. The account has often displayed behavior of copying content and posts from other accounts under its own twitter name. This tweet popped up after someone I followed retweeted this post. Although the tweet from this account has since been deleted, there is still evidence of the statement’s remains around the twitterverse. This statement isn’t completely untrue, there are extenuating circumstances to this situation. While the tuition cost is much lower according to www.studyineurope.eu, showing that first cycle degrees or bachelors degrees only cost 189 euros per year at public universities, this case is not always the same. Pricing is dependent on both the choice of school as well as the major and program you decide to follow. Tuition in France, between their offered private and public schools, can range between 500 and 10,000 euros. While much cheaper than the cost of a bachelors degree or even masters and doctorate program in America, it is not completely accurate to say that college tuition in France is $400.
History in Pictures also released a tweet involving Shigeki Tanaka winning the Boston Marathon in 1951. In one tweet released by History in Pictures, it is said that “Shigeki Tanaka lived just outside Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. Here he is winning the Boston Marathon, 1951.” Yet, 4 days later, History in Pictures tweeted the same picture with the caption, “Survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, Shigeki Tanaka won the Boston Marathon in 1951. The crowd were silent.” After going through several websites where this tweet seemed to come from the tumblr and imgur trackless rabbit holes, one WordPress website included this photo along with other vintage photos and captions. Yet, this the author of the website also pointed out that a commenter, Peter, found that Tanaka lived over 20 miles away from the Hiroshima bombing site. It is also noted that Tanaka was at home when the bomb dropped. Therefore Shigeki Tanaka is not technically a survivor from the bombing. These are just a small few examples that I have found over the past few months while scrolling through my personal twitter account on my own time.
These sites such as History in Pictures may already be preconceived as playful, small accounts that occasionally post information on historical or current events. Although these twitter pages are by no means near the same vector in quality of research from official news outlets like CNN, AP, and BBC. Yet, even the twitter accounts of these hard-hitting news publications are subject to mistakes. One major example of falsely reported information by supposedly accredited resources is shown through a tweet by BBC journalist Ahmen Khawaja in early June of last year. Khawaja tweeted, “Queen Elizabeth has died.” While the tweet was quoted by Khawaja who tagged BBC World’s twitter account, suggesting that BBC World was the original source. The fault was nonetheless that of the reporter Ahmen Khawaja releasing such information preemptively where twitter followers of these accounts may have only retweeted the claimed death of the Queen. The focus was on the Queen’s alleged “death,” rather than the tweet posted before about Queen Elizabeth being treated at a hospital, or the tweet that came after claiming that Queen Elizabeth’s death was a false alarm.
Although some of these tweets have been deleted since their posting, it doesn’t retract the tweets that have been viewed by thousands, even millions, of followers who have seen this information and have shared it with others via the online rumor mill of retweets or copying and tweeting these false posts. Screenshots can be very powerful, and once these short messages are released to the public to mass amounts of people, it isn’t as easy as simply deleted what you said. Like the saying think before you speak, it is just as important to think before you write.