When News Is Breaking, Be Careful about Posting Tweets

[MineralMan]

Breaking news is exciting, and everyone wants to play. Twitter gets all ablaze with people tweeting things that relate to that breaking news. When that happens, it can be tempting to post links to tweets from people whose names we recognize.

However, before posting someone's tweet about the breaking news, please take the time to check and make sure what was tweeted is actually accurate. If someone tweets an old story as if it was just published and you post that tweet without checking the original story, it could confuse people. If you post a tweet that says that some publication just published something and it turns out that that publication actually published the story a month ago, DUers will get wrong information.

Twitter's cool, of course, but should never be taken as news without corroboration. Too many people tweet incorrectly by using links from Twitter as news stories without verification. Please check what was tweeted first. Then post. If the tweet says a story just appeared, and it did not, please add a line to that effect in your DU post.

Please note that I'm using the word "please" in my request. I'm not ordering anyone to do or not do anything. I can't do that, since I'm not an administrator on DU. I'm asking politely.

[bigtree]

1. EVERYONE here makes mistakes with sources/dates at one time or the other

...not exclusive or necessarily endemic to Twitter.

Hate these lectures. The post that set you off this time had a minor problem with the date. Not some catastrophic event, and likely could have been resolved without all of the finger-wagging.

What happened to PM? That's usually the most polite and effective way to communicate issues like this with other posters you have concerns with.

[MineralMan]

2. OK. Thanks for your reply.

[cwydro]

7. Oh I LOVE the lectures. They're hilarious on so many levels.

The pedantic tone, the fussy schoolmarmish nag - one can almost see the admonishing finger lol.

[Sugar Smack]

3. Thanks, Dad!

[MineralMan]

4. No problem.

[NCTraveler]

5. Spankings are my thing. Thank you.

[MineralMan]

6. Not my kink, but to each his own.

[cwydro]

8. Lol.

Well played.

[HipChick]

9. I don't think you can try to manage what people post..

For one you have folks from zero internet savvy to nerds....
How can you actually see if a tweet is accurate? Typically it's someone's opinion, and not being funny but like arseholes we all have one..