The good, the bad, and the omg!!

      Have you ever heard of the phrase, " A birdie told me...."? The phrase was used to let someone know, that we had received the gossip from someone else without mentioning their names. In his speech Jon Ronson illustrates how Twitter can be used for good, and evil. The story about Justine Sacco was impressive, yet not shocking. In today's society we are accustomed to jump into conclusions in certain situations. Jon makes a very important point in his speech he explains how back in the day Twitter was a form of unifying people that common interests. He says that it was about sharing secrets and identifying with them, and making connections with people. Now a days Twitter has turned into a form of condemnation. Society is ready to cast the first stone at anyone that might be out of the norms. Personally I am not a big fan of Twitter, in fact I did not have an account until an assignment for class. Perhaps it is because I do not fully understand how it works, and also because sometimes I am not interested in strangers business.
      There are many speculations about Twitter, but ultimately it is up to the users to choose how to use their accounts. According to the article by Dr. Pessy Drexter, there are pros and cons to Twitter. One of the good thing about Twitter is that it is easy to access, and share ideas with others. The other side of the coin is that users must be cautious of their posts,because many people can have access to your posts. Another good thing about Twitter is that it is good for self promotion, or promotion of others. For example businesses use Twitter to give their services more popularity. Yet if we flip the coin we can find that it is also just as easy to throw someone under the bus just as easy. For example the "trash talk" Twitter battle between Charlie Shean and Ashton Kutcher, in where Shean twitted about Kutchers performance in the show Two and a half Men. Sheans tweets were possibly re-tweeted by other people simply because they might find this kind of tweets amusing and it is good gossip.
     In the case of Justine's story, it is unfortunate that people misjudged this woman only by her tweet. Yes her tweet was disturbing to people, and that is the risk we take when we post anything on social media. Yet I disagree with all those users that threw this woman under the bus only for trying to make a joke. She did not commit any crime at all, and besides who is society to judge someone simply by a Tweeter post. If that is what our society does now, simply criticize, judge, gossip, and point fingers then we as a society have a problem. There are many better, and more effective ways to make use of our time than sit in from of a monitor waiting for someones life to crash and burn. Instead we should give each other life,and help each other by passing on productive information rather than gossiping about who said what and how we can use that against them. No further good can come from making judgments about people we do not know.