Twitter: Dangerous or Not ?
December 20, 2007 · Print This Article
Yesterday I was following my Twitter stream and I noticed something interesting happen. Our good DC friend and cameraman extraordinaire @newmediajim (of Verge New Media) was posting tweets from the White House as several incidents were taking place. Initially he was posting first hand about the fire that had broken out in the Old Executive Building (where the VP’s offices are located) and then he was tweeting about the President and his departure on Marine One. I love following @newmediajim for just this reason, interesting stuff from a first hand viewer. But then someone in the chain asked a question of @newmediajim that I found interesting. She asked if the secret service knew Jim uses Twitter ? It actually made me stop and think. Would/Could Twitter be used in such a fashion to make it “dangerous” ? I mean the news I was receiving was about the same in a general sense that I could feasibly see on FOX news Headline news, but the question resonated with me.
Fast forward to later when I saw this headline: “Twitter is dangerous” . Michael Krigsman over at ZDNet wrote about how Twitter could be dangerous to companies. This is his argument:
Imagine this scenario: 20 people are in a confidential meeting, one of them using Twitter. This attendee broadcasts an off-hand “tweet” (Twitter comment) to his or her “followers” (Twitter friends). With traditional instant messaging, that message would be received by perhaps one or two others. With Twitter, that comment may be seen by 10, 100, 1000, or more followers.
Why it matters? Twitter has the power to turn groups of innocent bystanders into instant analysts. Even seemingly innocuous comments, when put before a large group of people, can be analyzed more rapidly, and in more depth, than you might expect. This can easily cause ranges of unintended, highly negative, consequences.
This got me thinking even more about it last night and how Twitter could be considered dangerous. Then when I awoke this morning and saw a tweet from @jowyang referencing a post from Dennis Howlett titled: “Twitter is useful” as a counterbalance to Michael’s article earlier. In it he references a post from Ed Yourdon where he states:
…that’s like saying that the Internet is dangerous because it enables children to see pornography, or because hundreds (maybe thousands) of people actually respond to those ridiculous Nigerian spam emails about millions of dollars in unclaimed bank accounts. Sure, Twitter is potentially dangerous — in the same way that any other form of instant messaging, e-mail, and blogging could be dangerous. Hey, while we’re at it, telephones are dangerous! So are letters mailed through the U.S. Post Office (assuming that any of them actually get delivered.) So is talking to other people, especially strangers. Who knows — maybe it’s even dangerous to think uncensored thoughts in the presence of advanced mind-reading devices operated by Homeland Security and the KGB.
He makes a good point, one that really balances the scales. While it is true that Twitter could be dangerous, is it any more dangerous than the email or IM’s we send on a daily basis ? No, not really. Micheal is right though when he says that eventually IT departments will have to set guidelines and rules and simply trust their employees will follow them. Sure, someone will break them, but at least since their are guidelines they have recourse to take action.
What do you all think ? Twitter: Dangerous or not?
Jim spoke at a Social media club meeting where he acknowledged that since he goes to a lot of places he cannot always Tweet or disclose location. Thats prudent thinking.
Yes you could lose your job if you tweet confidential info or publicly twitter abt your boss
This is called “Operational Security”, or “OpSec”. Basically, watching what you say so you don’t give anything away. But it’s not always as simple as just “don’t tell the things you know are secrets”. Sharing what most of us would consider to be perfectly innocent information, may in fact be the missing piece for a person or group engaged in “nefarious activity”, be it violence or corporate. I work for the DOD, managing the military amputee research program. I would like to write & share more about it, but OpSec presents significant hurdles in doing so. I’m in the process of working with our webmaster and graphics folks to build a website for the program where I’ll be able to share information, but it will still be difficult to incorporate any significant degree of “social media”.