November 17, 2009 - 3:59pm
Could one of you youngsters please explain this to me?
If you're reading somebody's Twitter feed, you're only reading outgoing tweets, is that right?
Also, what's to stop me from claiming to be somebody famous?
Nothing stopping you. Though you'd be found out pretty quickly, I'd imagine and would open yourself up to a lawsuit if you post anything defamatory - let's say you're posing as, oh, Tiger Woods, and mention doing some stuff that damages his reputation.
A lot of people did it in the early days. If you look up Shaquille Oneal's profile, his moniker is "the_real_shaq" because there were a bunch of fake Shaqs out there.
Andyes, if you were to go his page, you'd see his outgoing tweets. Anything with @ in front of it directed at a specific person
Never understood the whole Twitter thing, Facebook was a big enough deal, even though I was reluctant to join, like many things, a good idea is only that until the masses make a mess out of it.
Also, what's to stop me from claiming to be somebody famous?
All tweets are outgoing, though some of them are flagged as being of particular interest to a certain person, as follows: @gpie. So you are only reading a particular twitterer's outgoing feed. If you are interested in all the tweets directed at the user gpie, for example, you can do a search for @gpie, and you'll get all of those tweets. There's an exception: some people "protect" their tweets so that they can only be read by their followers.
Nothing in particular stops you from claiming to be somebody famous, or even somebody you're not. The same is true here in babble of course: anybody could set up an account under the username NoamChomsky. Mind you, babble is small enough that you'd probably get caught. As for twitter, I do suspect that some tech-savvy famous people occasionally check to make sure that nobody is masquerading as them: I suspect that twitter.com would remove a fraudulent account if they were made aware of it.
By the way, there are numerous people claiming to be Pope Benedict, as well as several Paul McCartneys and three Stephen (or Steve) Harpers.
If you're minimally savvy about hiding your tracks, there's no way that anyone could identify you. All you have to do is go to a cafe with free wifi: the best that anyone could do is trace the offending messages back to that i.p. address.
True, you could probably get away with it. I guess the bigger question is would anyone believe you or me if we went on claiming to be Tiger Woods or somebody famous?
I was just reading too about people going out and grabbing up all the brand names so they can then sell them to the companies. So, for example, if Pepsi wasn't quick enough booking twitter.com./pepsi, someone grabds it up and offers to sell it to them at a large price.
I thought there was some law specifically prohibiting that sort of thing, SSC. Grabbing internet domain names and then trying to sell them for exorbitant amounts -- isn't that illegal now?
Thanks for the information, everybody.
Probably not. Though these sites are open to abuse and mischief: You could cause a lot of trouble to someone's reputation by opening a twitter account in their name, and then posting, under that name, inappropriate remarks etc. If it's someone superfamous it wouldn't work, but if it's the person running for MP in your riding or for mayor in your small town, you might force them to waste time with denials and damage control.
People impersonate famous people all the time. There was a fake one for Dina Lohan that was hilarious, though likely not if you are Dina Lohan. Some celebrities apparently have something on their page to show that they have proven their id to Twitter (like "authenticated celebrity" or something. I remember a fake one of Christopher Walken that was removed. It was exactly what you would expect Christopher Walken to be like, and also hilarious. Of course, you are laughing with Christopher Walken and at Dina Lohan.
On the Moral Depravity of Capitalism in 21 Tweets
The 10 Most Tweeted Moments of All Time (er, since 2006, then)
This is a great question! I can't stand facebook, check it out once every 3 or so years then flee in horror of it for the next 2 or 3 years! Thanks but I don't have any interest in what kind of drink I would be if I was a cocktail, or how many electronic rubber duckies I can float in my electronic pond or whatever nonsense I get flooded with while away. LOL
Than being said, I doubt I would like Twitter any better. But I am curious to know what people mean when they say hashtag (#) something.
And thanks for the education from the more twitter-ate (like literate!) among us! Even though I probably won't use it I do wish to know what it is and how it works.
The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.
You can mark your tweet with a particular hastag if you wish it to show up in search results when people search for tweets marked with that particular tag. For example, the tag "#ndpldr" is being used for posts on the NDP leadership contest, so if you search for the tag thusly:
Search for #ndpldr
you will see all the tweets marked with that particular tag.
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One struggle, many fronts.
I was extremerly skeptical of twitter, but I have cautiously entered the fray since the fall and it's actually pretty interesting.
My twitter account languished for some time until the last federal election when I determined to figure it out and make it work for me.
I think it really works for connecting like minded people and is capable of rapid response to changing conditions.
Still in its infancy, and still evolving rapidly. I find pretty interesting.
The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.
You can mark your tweet with a particular hastag if you wish it to show up in search results when people search for tweets marked with that particular tag. For example, the tag "#ndpldr" is being used for posts on the NDP leadership contest, so if you search for the tag thusly:
Search for #ndpldr
you will see all the tweets marked with that particular tag.
__________________________________
One struggle, many fronts.
Thank you for that info Scott. It isn't as complicated as I thought it was, this is good to know!
Hello rabble tweeters. i have just created a website, which of course, i'm hoping to generate interest in. one option available to me is tweeting. being something of a twit and having no tweet account, i wonder how i would make use of it. currently whenever i publish or save my site i'm asked to tweeter, which seems too much because often i'm correcting something minor. any advice?
also when you tweet something, do you send it to the entire tweet world or a select group?
you can see i don't know much about this.
thanks terry
You can tweet as many of your posts as you wish. Generally you either tweet to all of your followers, or to people you single out by "@", in which case your tweets are only viewable by those who follow you and those other people.
The surest way of getting a voice on twitter is to develop relationships with other tweeters who will retweet your posts. That's when you gain more followers. So start to engage with people - responding to/supporting their posts so that they have an incentive to read you.
Also, look for hashtags that relate to your topic and include them in your tweets..
If you don't have a natural "soapbox" (politcio; journalist; celeb; academic) it can be hard to get followers, because there are so many others in the same boat. Keep at it, and it will slowly happen.
#JonathanFranzenHates
"Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Twitter stands for everything I oppose… it’s hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters… it’s like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis. Or it’s like writing a novel without the letter ‘P’… It’s the ultimate irresponsible medium."