Is this how to fix Twitter...?

I'm still hoping this is a spoof but The Guardian has run an article on its website, discussing the issue of injunction busters on Twitter, which has certainly got people talking (342 comments and counting). It's written by a character called Richard Hillgrove who we're told is "a business and political public relations consultant". It hinges on an almighty "say what now?!?" of a sentence. It begins:

"The central point here is whether Twitter and Facebook, as publishers of content, should be as accountable as traditional media..."

Fair enough. But it goes on:

"Clearly, they are going to have to introduce a delay mechanism so that content can be checked before it goes up..."

Er... ok...

That'll be "clearly" as in "clearly the moon is made of cheese", or "clearly the lost Kingdom of Atlantis must be favourites for the next World Cup".

With around 3,000 multilingual tweets per second at busy times, of which a barely negligible amount may be contentious, we can safely say having tens of thousands of people just approving Tweets around the clock is clearly not the answer.

Comments

[_millymoo]

I penned him a little response:
http://beneaththewig.com/a-twat-in-a-hat

[Brad Jordan]

This article put me back too. He says, and I quote:
“…whether 75,000 Twitter users… should be allowed to gossip about a footballer or not is irrelevant.
It's wholly to do with whether social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter should operate outside the law that affects everybody else…”

Er… No. Whether 75,000 Twitter users should be allowed to gossip about a footballer or not is very relevant sir. Because regardless of whether individuals realise it or not, ignorance of the law is no excuse, and if people are breaking the law by breaching injunctions on Twitter, Facebook, in a blog post, or writing it on their own face and walking through Oxford St, it is the individual who is guilty. Not Twitter, or Facebook, or Wordpress, or Sharpie, the pen manufacturer who made the ink that you used to advertise on your forehead.

Social media platforms are not “media publishers like any other”. Their revenue comes from selling their users data to marketers, not their user’s content.
The author recognises that the so called “citizen journalists” are not employed. So why then are social media platforms accountable?

As for the absurd suggestion of a delay mechanism, people should not be paid to write articles about things they do not understand.

[Craig McGill]

Having said that, if they did implement such a system it would pretty much wipe out global unemployment!

[Sam]

It's a bizarre notion, saying twitter should be treated like traditional media and then putting forward the idea of approved publishing.

Especially seeing as newspapers themselves go through the same self-editing that a twitter user does. Any naughtiness is still dealt with after the fact.