Does a Retweet Equal an Endorsement?
June 29th, 2009 |
That’s the question posed on the Old Media New Tricks blog. Would a tweet be interesting if it was untrue? The sender of the retweet is implying at the very least endorsement of its source if not the item itself, and that is one of the things that makes retweets of breaking news so untrustworthy.
The lack of integrity behind the Twitter retweet is well documented, from its marginal value as a measure of influence to its questionable role in the accurate republication of links and other content. Most Twitter identities are not verified, so the source of most tweets cannot be fully verified. The content of those tweets often points to other tweets, or to blogs written by amateurs (non professional journalists.) This lack of provenance is bad enough, but add that the sender of the retweet can (sometimes must) omit or change information, and the questionable quality of the original information, and NO ONE should be surprised that so many retweets are pure garbage.
Yet in a moment of excitement, when a news story breaks, or when an issue is highly emotional, few people think about these things, instead retweeting like mad as if passing on AP wire stories or Wall Street Journal articles that have been compiled by professional journalists and checked by professional fact checkers. Sure the AP and every other major news outlet possess bias, and make mistakes, and fall victim to sensationalism, but there are at least some standards and controls, and there are also corrective actions that can and are taken when something is misreported. On Twitter, the best to hope for is a “my bad.”
I think Jay Rosen is being overly charitable when he says, (quoting Old Media New Tricks, not Jay here) “not to expect open systems like Twitter to behave in the same manner expected of editorial systems.” I like the McLuhanesque idea behind applying the term “open system” to Twitter, but I think it’s Twitter is far too open and uncontrolled, lacking the processes and oversight that other open systems, like the open source software movement, take for granted.
Tags: retweet, Jay Rosen, Twitter, endorsement, open system
| Sphere This |
Retweets of breaking news are to be taken with a big grain of salt. I rarely retweet breaking news but I often retweet interesting and/or funny stuff.
Comment by Erik — June 29, 2009 @ 10:40 pm
Retweet for news can be great if it refers to a source via a link. Else is comparable with mouth to mouth communication, which is very common.. so why not with tweets? All information is relatively inaccurate, consider important publishers and newspapers who post contradicting articles all the time. At least one of those is false, and both can be untrustworthy.
Comment by Gijsbert Anthony — June 30, 2009 @ 1:39 am
A retweet is a retweet, simple as that.
What it definitely implies is that the retweeter found the content to be ‘of interest’ in some way shape or form.
But this is Twitter - so anything passed on is, what it is, it’s a tweet; not a news story, not a fact-checked thesis, just what somebody chose to write in 140 characters or less.
So, it’s up to you how you deal with that tweet or retweet, and your judgment is based on what you know of the retweeter and what you can perceive from its source.
I certainly don’t treat any RT, or Tweet for that matter as gospel truth, unless I’ve clicked through and checked its source. Given the nature of Twitter, being a light touch medium, we all know that RT’s probably haven’t been checked by the retweeter, and we also know that some retweeters are more conscientious than others.
In and of itself, a retweet, is simply a retweet, and it definitely implies that someone found it interesting, and therefore, so might you…
Oh, and check out #fakeRTs if you want a new take on this… http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23fakeRTs
Comment by Paul Dawson — July 1, 2009 @ 9:39 am
[...] 4 Simple ways to show love & respect to your Twitter followers The money lurking in Twitter Does a Retweet Equal an Endorsement? Twitter Friends Widget Twitter Better: 20 Ways to Filter Your Tweets Display Tweets With PHP/Ajax: [...]
Pingback by MacDaddy Links of the Week - 7/5/09 | bkmacdaddy designs — July 5, 2009 @ 5:16 am
[...] Does a Retweet Equal an Endorsement? [...]
Pingback by social media websites(twitter, facebook, etc) articles, 24jun-5jul2009 « Stefanm, my link collection — July 7, 2009 @ 2:50 am
[...] 4 Simple ways to show love & respect to your Twitter followers The money lurking in Twitter Does a Retweet Equal an Endorsement? Twitter Friends Widget Twitter Better: 20 Ways to Filter Your Tweets Display Tweets With PHP/Ajax: [...]
Pingback by July 2009's Monthly Mother Lode of MacDaddy Links! | bkmacdaddy designs — August 3, 2009 @ 6:45 am
I can’t believe I just saw that you posted this. (For some reason, it must not have been coming through on my Google Analytics, but I found it through Tweetmeme.)
I still think this is up in the air. Personally, I like to see people verify sources, etc. before blindly re-tweeting unconfirmed news.
Comment by Daniel — October 29, 2009 @ 2:46 pm