Tag Archives: Twitter

Twitter Discrimination

I skip the updates of people whose Twitter profile pictures have no face. I gloss them over completely. Though the November “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?” switch depersonalizes Twitter, the change is about content, not origin. It’s still comforting to know who information is coming from, regardless of the nature of the information. “What’s happening?” pushes users to be more accountable for what they post (i.e. not drivel), and, in the meantime, encourages true ownership (or RT-er-ship) of content. Faces are important for reminding other users of the origins of tweets; those whose profile pictures don’t have faces must have something to hide (or, more likely, something not worth taking ownership for).

United We Tweet

Twitter recently changed its prompt to users from “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?”  This de-personalization of Twitter is a much needed call away from the “Going to take a shower then bake a pie” kinds of posts — of which non-users assume Twitter is chock-full — and a nudge to current Tweeters to report rather than self-report.  Twitter’s asking its users to be citizen journalists, a title that gets thrown around a lot right now in discussions of the fate of the newspaper and the direction of online news, but a title that nonetheless places a burden of responsibility on the action of Tweeting.  Rather than updating followers on the minutia of one’s daily life (the kind of updates that prompt me to hit the block button), using Twitter becomes about civic duty and the circulation of information.  I hope users are ready to answer the call.