Twitter “RTs” leave room for misquotes, fabrications
April 30th, 2009 |
I am not a big fan of the RT (retweet) custom on Twitter. I think it wastes space, and is unnecessary. It often ends up in an awkward stumbling over one’s self to give credit to someone who hasn’t done much more than tweet a link. (If you disagree with me on this point, join the crowd.)
Worse still, the RT leaves room for misquotation, misunderstanding and even fabrication of tweets. Tonight, by random coincidence, I observed an argument about a tweet by @GMVolt. A number of people were doing RTs that @GMVolt had tweeted “GM has a lot of problems, but it HAS sold more EV’s and hybrids than the carnival barker who runs Tesla.” Unfortunately a Twitter search discloses only the RTs, and no original tweet from @GMVolt with this content.
A careful examination of the search results reveals what happened.
@jkp1187 tweeted the first instance “: @GMVolt GM has a lot of problems” etc. @cbarger misinterpreted this and posted it with an RT, indicating @GMVolt had posted it, which did not actually happen, or at least, there is no evidence that it did. (The tweet is not in @GMVolt’s archive either).
What happened here appears to be a simple mistake, but it points out yet another tragic flaw in the RT, and an acute risk for corporate spokespeople who can be exposed to misquotation, etc.
Tags: Twitter RT, misuse, abuse, corporate risk, @GMVolt, Tesla
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RT’s to my mind just don’t work and I think it is the single most laziest thing you can do on Twitter. Sure, I have done them too but I think out of 500+ Tweets I have only done iit less than 10 times.
My view is only if you think it has got huge reader interest should you retweet…dong it for the sake of sending a tweet is just lame.
Comment by Alex Redmond — May 1, 2009 @ 4:05 am
Hi there. Just wanted to weigh in as the main culprit here. I messed up, and I want to be clear that no one else is at fault. It was an honest mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. I saw @jkp1187 reply to @GMVolt, misread it as a RT, and then I RT’d attributing the statement to @GMVolt instead of @jkp1187. They didn’t mess up, they were just conversing. Those who RT’d me acted in good faith.
Actually, I acted in good faith too… I just made a mistake. But I appreciate — honestly! — the fact that folks caught it and that you’ve called attention to it; there’s a good lesson for me (and anyone else) about being particularly careful if you’re going to RT. Anyway, I just wanted to apologize here as well for the error.
Comment by Christopher Barger — May 1, 2009 @ 4:06 am
As noted above, my comment was in response to/directed at @GMVolt, but I am sorry if it contributed to confusion in any way.
When I retweet, I try to be cognizant of the original poster, and make sure my own comments are clearly defined, but mistakes do happen, especially in a fast-moving media like Twitter. Certainly this was an honest mistake on @cbarger’s part, but the possibility of misuse/abuse exists.
Part of the problem is the difficulty in squeezing everything into 140 characters. Would be nice if Twitter had some sort of feature (one that did NOT use up character space) that flagged posts as retweets.
Comment by jkp1187 — May 1, 2009 @ 5:33 am
Much as I dislike the RT concept, I agree with jkp1187 and others who have suggested an “official” RT as part of the Twitter interface. Just as @’s are tracked, you could click RT, which would create an uneditable update, with a note below indicating that it had been retweeted, linking to the original source. This would maintain the current interface, eliminate the unnecessary addition of all of the characters required by an RT (and multiple RTs are almost undreadable http://www.twitpic.com/1nk7m ), and ensure integrity of the original message.
Comment by joel — May 1, 2009 @ 9:35 am
[...] [UPDATE 5/5/09 8:54pm: New related post found: Twitter “RTs” leave room for misquotes, fabrications] [...]
Pingback by Mari Smith - Relationship Marketing Specialist » Blog Archive » Retweet Hijacking - What Would You Do? — May 5, 2009 @ 9:07 pm
Oh wow - excellent post, Joel!! I just had a rather unfortunate “retweet hijack” happen to me yesterday and made a reluctant decision to blog about it… which has stirred up quite the controversy. Ugh.
http://www.marismith.com/retweet-hijacking-what-would-you-do/ — I just added a trackback to your post here as it provides great additional reading for my readers.
Cheers
@marismith
Comment by Mari Smith — May 5, 2009 @ 9:16 pm
Much as I dislike the RT concept, I agree with jkp1187 and others who have suggested an “official” RT as part of the Twitter interface. Just as @’s are tracked, you could click RT, which would create an uneditable update, with a note below indicating that it had been retweeted, linking to the original source. This would maintain the current interface, eliminate the unnecessary addition of all of the characters required by an RT (and multiple RTs are almost undreadable http://www.twitpic.com/1nk7m ), and ensure integrity of the original message.
Comment by PB — May 27, 2009 @ 2:27 am
Моя теория чуть-чуть отличается от описанной автором, если кому-то интересно, могу поделиться своими мыслями. Мой ящик:diman.ru93@mail.ru, Михаил.
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