"The most fascinating thing about Twitter," states Stephen Johnson, "is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it." In the article, "How Twitter Will Change Our Lives," writer Stephen Johnson talks about just how much users have changed the social network. "The convention of grouping a topic or event by the "hashtag" was spontaneously invented by the Twitter user base," states Johnson. Twitter allows users to keep in touch with friends, while it can also allow them to search real time conversations about trendy topics. Many in the technology world have come to the realization that Twitter will only become bigger, with a buyout offer from Facebook of a reportedly $500 million dollars helping prove this. Not only has it become a way to let friends know what is on their to-do list for that day, but it can also be used for advertising and distributing certain products for businesses. Many of the tools currently available to Twitter users were created by Twitter users themselves. The users have no doubt helped the social network grow, but it has also hurt the site as well. Cyber bullying is at an all time high, with the use of Facebook, texting, and Twitter. Last year, Urban Meyer, former head football coach of the Florida Gators, made it a rule that players could not tweet during the season because of one player’s explicit tweets about football, women, and marijuana. Twitter and Facebook also aided the revolution in Egypt and Libya this year. The power of a sentence containing 140 characters or less has proven to be more powerful than we initially expected, and without stricter censorship, it’ll only get worse.
Since Twitter was creating in March of 2006 until now, the social network looks to be almost brand new because of the popularity of the site and all the features that have been added by users. But with growth comes problems. Twitter has because a host to all of the bacteria, and by bacteria I mean users using Twitter in ways not intended by the founders, with cyber bullying being one of them. Today, children have begun obtaining cell phones, Facebooks, and Twitters. These sites have begun to harvest rumors and fights that have gone as far as suicide. Social networks have made instigating easy on our youth today, and censorship is the only way it will ever get better. Censorship is the suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered offensive, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people. This standard is determined by a government or other controlling body. To control this growing problem of cyber bullying and other ordeals that are done inside of Twitter, there needs to be specific changes in their security to make sure the tweets are not able to be taken offensively by others. But by increasing security and enforcing censorship, Twitter officials will be forced to intrude on user’s first amendment in the Constitution of freedom of speech. So basically, either way someone is going to be outraged as always. There isn’t a right way to do it because either way it is done, one party will be upset while the other is happy, and visa versa.
The question many want to know is, “Should Twitter management enforce censorship on it's users more strictly as it gets more widely used?” The question is critical and very important. This could very well determine the future of Twitter, because if they do not become stricter upon the issue of censorship, it’ll only get worse, and users will continue to find loop holes to say exactly want to say. This question is so important because it deals with the youth of our country. If censorship was to be taken more seriously, it would help filter out certain rumors and slander used by kids today. But the other side of the argument is that by censoring certain tweets, the Twitter management team is infringing on our 1st amendment of the constitution and freedom of speech. It is unconstitutional for someone to be able to tell you what is right or wrong to say on a social networking site, so if Twitter were to do so, they would most likely be sued or have other lawful acts targeted towards them. The argument for this issue is clear cut: either you are for stricter censorship or you aren’t, and both sides have very clear points to back their side up with. I expect to find most parents and school officials will agree. Even college coaches and other associations will agree, but people who aren’t attached to any major association or teenagers will strongly disagree with implementing stronger censorship. I personally feel that tweets on Twitter should be checked by a management team, and Twitter should make an agreement to make users understand before they sign up that they do have the right to do so to block law altercations.
