Is Twitter an Important and Credible News Source?

August 26, 2011 at 9:58 am

In the wake of the recent UK riots and the conflict in Libya, Twitter is rapidly emerging as a genuine source of real-time information and, as such, the mainstream media is turning to the social network as a funnel of news taken right from the scene. But of course, we can’t always rely on the Average Joe at street level to provide us with the whole truth. So, how far can Twitter be trusted?

During the UK riots that occurred a few weeks ago, social media exploded as hundreds of those involved in the disturbances, or simply watching them unfold, decided to reach for their smartphones and frantically inform The Internet of what was being smashed and looted.

Although many of the tweets contained genuine information and provided an insight into what was occurring at the scenes of the violence, a number of Twitter users took advantage of the opportunity and tweeted sensational, but factually incorrect news in order to boost their online profile.

What the UK riots displayed very clearly is that Twitter as a news source is only as reliable as the people on it and as such, it is misguided for major news outlets to focus reporting on information from social networking websites. The information these sites provide will always be skewed by the human tendency to exaggerate in order to make their lives and experiences seem more interesting.

With this in mind, it is essential that the veracity of information from Twitter is verified by more conventional means before it is widely reported. The perils of neglecting to do so are obvious; you only need to consider the many celebrity death hoaxes that Twitter has perpetuated, including those of Kanye West and Jackie Chan.

However, Twitter’s importance for the dissemination of information should never be underestimated.

During the 2009 election protests in Iran, protesters on the ground used Twitter to co-ordinate demonstrations against the Ahmadinejad regime. Twitter even chose to delay an upgrade to the network in order to allow Iranian protesters to continue to utilise the service as it was deemed crucial to their ongoing protest movement. In this situation, news media could not ignore the vast impact of Twitter as the protests continued.

So, Twitter will continue to be a platform that provides us with news from the scene courtesy of the average smartphone user. It continues to be questionable how trustworthy this information is, as shown by the exaggeration of the UK riots and the spread of all-to-common death hoaxes, but by no means does that lessen its impact as a very new and very interesting way for us to consume information.