How To Split An Atom

If you haven’t read Ariel Waldman’s most recent post regarding Twitter, you should.

It’s not a prerequisite for reading the rest of this post (as I will sum it up), but the full story is a must read for any of you that truly care about the progression of social media and the roadblocks it will face.

Twitter Stalking

In essence, Ms. Waldman (a prevalent voice on twitter with over 3,800 followers) had an experience with a stalker on Twitter that began in June of 2007. The stalker (who goes unnamed in the post) was behaving in a way that clearly (at least in my opinion) is in violation of Twitter’s terms of service. Through multiple conversations with Twitter, Ms. Waldman was told that Twitter was basically excusing itself from involvement and changing their terms of service. It is the behavior of Twitter that I want to discuss.

Social media has been heralded as the democratization of the internet, the opening of the walled gardens and the gateway to a more open web culture. It has opened the eyes and ears of the world to the opinions of every man, woman and child with a computer and an urge to participate in a discussion about something. However, without trust, how can we as users continue to allow our thoughts and desires drive these people centered tools?

To be honest, isn’t it a bit alarming that Twitter as an organization would fail to protect (or at least satisfy) one of it’s more prolific and influential users? This isn’t a situation where the influencer is the abuser, quite the opposite in fact. I do not know Ariel Waldman, I don’t recall ever conversing with her directly through twitter (although I do read her blog), and I am rather upset that Twitter would act with such impotence and disregard.

But more to the point; transparency is supposed to be the name of the game in the social media arena. I imagine that I am not unlike the vast majority of other users, in that I can’t say as I have ever read any of the TOS agreements (aside from Facebook) at any length, I probably wouldn’t have even known the user was in violation. That is my choice, and I understand why the TOS exists (I also understand why no one reads them.) What I can’t fathom is why a company like Twitter (that by some reports has found $20M in venture capital funds laid at their doorstep in the last couple of weeks) would behave in this manner (or maybe I can).

Twitter, like every other company, needs to find a way to become profitable. They don’t run ads, they allow users to block spammers and bots, and they have been more than open to outside programmers developing tools that improve their product. In short, Twitter has behaved like a truly open social media company, one that is intent on allowing its community to grow and thrive. Their blog (which I don’t think is widely read) can be very insightful (if not always very informational) and the customer service provided through Get Satisfaction has been fairly exemplary (at least in my experience). This is the essence of transparency, allowing your consumers to be a part of your company’s growth, not just the reason for it.

However, this sudden back-slide gives me pause. I am not going to discontinue my use of Twitter (Ms. Waldman is the offended in this case, and she has not discontinued her tweeting), but at the same time, I have lost a little faith in it. My faith in the Twitter community has not been shaken (as this story was widely disseminated using the tool,) but my faith in the people making the decisions has been reduced.

Opacity is not a trend that social media is supposed to represent, and Twitter’s lack of desire to make a real decision in this instance is exactly that. It is a situation that could have been easily resolved, and instead (not unlike the corporations that so much of the social media community is against) resorted to legalities to defend their decision to recuse themselves from taking a stand. In order for this social media experiment to work, communication has to run both ways, especially when hard decisions need to be made.

Greg Hollingsworth is a marketer and blogger who also writes about politics on Devil’s In The Details.

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