Twitter has always seemed to be a joke. Telling an
assortment of people who also supposedly care about what you are doing or
thinking at any given time would have seemed ridiculous a couple of years ago,
in fact it seems ridiculous now. The basic use of twitter still seems
completely useless, but tweeting about meeting or for spreading ideas could be
an incredibly powerful tool. Harris talks about using twitter to not just tell
people about events, but also how to manipulate people using twitter. He spread
a rumor across the Internet in order to rally people to his cause. Just imagine
how quickly a rumor could spread through a school. Here is where twitter’s true
power lies. Lies quickly spread to influence the decisions of a huge number of
people. The other pillar of power comes from the fact that such tweets could
come from accounts that don’t have obvious owners. There is no way to decipher
whether or not the information is valid, yet people will believe anything.
Rumors could even be spread multiple times by the same person. Harris admitted
to change what name he tweeted from in order to dodge legal action pointed at
his older twitter account. Also, multiple accounts could be used to not only
spread rumors more rapidly, but also to attack certain ideas. Harris’s use of
@Anti_Racism_Dog allowed him to easily and quickly deem an idea wrong by his
standards and throw the first punch in a fight against anyone that he wanted,
even if he himself didn’t want to personally fight the person. The biggest
aspect of starting a fight such as this is that everyone who follows any of the
people who are participating in the fight is watching. Such an enormous
audience can ruin any person’s reputation with almost no effort. Twitter can
become an incredibly dangerous tool.
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