In this blog post, we explore how Twitter can maintain a platform for free expression while ensuring the reliability of information.
Social Network Services (SNS) have consistently emerged as a social issue in recent years. Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are terms we encounter at least once a day in our daily lives. SNS, which had been growing gradually based on the internet, expanded explosively with the widespread adoption of smartphones. Through smartphones, users can now easily share information such as text, photos, and videos anytime, anywhere, without the constraints of time or space. In line with this social trend, various SNS platforms tailored to users’ needs and purposes have been developed.
Among them, Twitter is undoubtedly the service with the greatest impact. Twitter essentially allows users to post messages of 140 characters or fewer on their own accounts. If you want to read posts on someone else’s account, you can use the “Follow” feature to view their posts at any time. Twitter’s powerful reach stems particularly from its Retweet feature. Retweeting allows users to share a post written by someone else with their own followers with a single click when they resonate with it and wish to spread it further. Even if you don’t know the original author, anyone can access the content through the retweeted post. If you think of “Kevin Bacon’s Six Degrees of Separation,” you can get an idea of just how vast Twitter’s reach is.
It’s also interesting that you can keep up with world events without having to read news separately, simply by using Twitter. For example, if someone living in Japan films a video of their house shaking during an earthquake and uploads it to Twitter, many people can view that video immediately. Additionally, photos of trees being blown away by Hurricane Sandy, which struck the U.S. East Coast, were posted on Twitter in real time. In this way, Twitter can be a more reliable source of information than mass media articles, which are often biased or fabricated due to vested interests. In fact, during the Olympic season, there were instances where people freely shared Olympic news on Twitter that couldn’t be seen on other networks due to broadcasters’ exclusive rights. Twitter is establishing itself as a medium that can reach the public more authentically than mass media. Considering these points, Twitter may actually offer a broader perspective on the overall state of society.
While Twitter, which allows a freedom distinct from traditional media, appears to be an ideal forum for public opinion, it is not without its downsides. As Twitter enters a more mature phase, political interference is on the rise, and misinformation is rampant. Many politicians and corporations have already joined Twitter to shape public opinion anew, and users are being exposed to this unconsciously formed sentiment. Furthermore, it is evident that the overflow of information amounts to nothing more than quantitative growth rather than qualitative improvement. Consequently, the value of individual pieces of information will be undervalued, and there is a risk that high-quality, meaningful information will be easily buried. Observing this transformation, some predict that Twitter will eventually fail to maintain its current popularity and will eventually decline. In fact, Facebook, once another promising social media platform, is no longer as popular as it once was, and its stock price is on a downward trend.
So, as Twitter users, what can we do to prevent Twitter from deteriorating and to sustain it as a forum for public discourse? First, strong regulations are needed against those who spread misinformation. While some may argue that this infringes on Twitter’s freedom, freedom without responsibility cannot be considered true freedom. However, the most crucial factor is likely the mature and responsible attitude of the public that makes up Twitter’s user base.
We need the discernment to treat information with seriousness, cite sources, refrain from posting false information, and critically evaluate the validity of information. Ultimately, maintaining and developing Twitter depends on the public’s ability to self-regulate and their mature attitude toward usage. Only when such efforts continue will Twitter be able to establish itself as an ideal free media platform.
