Every couple of days there is a classic version of Twitter drama. Someone makes a point or a statement and someone replies and everyone following gets to follow the entire dialogue. People jump in with their own two cents and either takes sides, or just throw more flames on the fire. Tweet pics and “tagging” someone in a tweet, using @____, brings tweets to certain people’s attention. My mentioning them in the tweet then makes them see it, and the conversation, even if they previously weren’t following it. These varying tricks allow certain things to become “big twitter news” as people have the ability to monitor picture and tweet views. The more people that look at a picture or see a controversy, makes it a bigger deal. “It was all over Twitter today” comes out of my mouth probably twice a week. Adding in a certain #’s also lets you take a jab at the person, like “hey great job. Not. #fail.”
An example of this exploded yesterday afternoon. The day before yesterday, a friend of mine went to the library to ask a question about where to find a certain book. The librarian she asked gave her an answer, but seemed very annoyed at having to answer what the librarian thought was a very simple question. After some good tweet investigation by a friend of ours, he actually found the librarian’s personal twitter, and found that she mocked (mocked!) my friend for asking such a question.
When my friend found this she immediately contacted the library twitter, via @cualibraries, with the following public tweet:
Hi @CUALibraries, I'm a big fan, but can you ask your employees not to mock a legitimate question I had ab the stacks? http://bit.ly/1cArCd
The link use to take you to the librarians’ tweet, but the librarian has since taken it down. When we all saw this people started to retweet it until the library came up with a response as to why a student can be publicly mocked for asking question on how to find a book. I was so insulted for my friend that I tweeted directly to the librarian herself, but again in the public setting that is twitter.
I said:
Hey @bookbloom, you better watch what you tweet! http://bit.ly/1cArCd Do you have a mocking quota? Gross and unprofessional #cua @cuatower
I mentioned the librarian to single her out, and I mentioned the CUA Tower to bring it some attention. I used the #CUA in order to include it with anything CUA related being discussed on Twitter so people could become made aware of what was occurring.
My friend Alex eventually got this publicly tweeted apology:
@AlexandraCSmith We're sorry! We love our students and are happy you're a fan! We want you to feel comfortable asking Q's - lesson learned 4:12 PM Nov 12th from TweetDeck in reply to AlexandraCSmith
Lesson learned for the library, and lesson learned for the tweeters. Be careful what you tweet, anything can be found.
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I went through a similar situation. When I was in Mullen waiting for a computer station to open up so I could find a book, I saw one guy was using the computer to go on Google earth and look up people's houses.
ReplyDeleteWhen I tweeted about this, and how much of a jerk I thought he was (didn't use that exact term), I got a tweet fifteen minutes later from @CUALibraries, saying this:
"At Mullen? It looks like only half the computers are being used. You can always check out a laptop if you don't want to wait."
Two problems. 1. My tweet was fifteen minutes ago. Of course, between the time I tweeted from the lobby and the time the library replied, all the stations may have opened up. 2. Why is the library telling me what to do? Why doesn't whoever is at the library show a little sympathy, and say "man that guy is a jerk."
I followed the twitter drama from my phone all day at work on thursday it was hilarious to see how many people Retweeted it and made it a huge controversy. I think the final tally was that 15 people retweeted it! This is yet another example about how people are getting burned by what they place online for the public to see. Once again the invisible audience of this girls twitter got her and I am sure her boss is not happy with her.
ReplyDeleteyour story is crazy john. how did you just find the librarians twitter though? you must have known who it was. And how did you know she would be tweeting about some crumby question your friend asked?
ReplyDeleteYour story brings up the point of do people actually know when your on your phone tweeting or tweeting anyhow? or is tweeting something you can do assuming that person wont find out because it would be too much work to think that the person would even care.
I want to know why the CUA Library has a Twitter account. Regardless, I feel like what people say on their Twitter accounts (as offensive as they may be) should be free thought of as free speech. I'm not agreeing with what the Librarian said, I just feel like there shouldn't be any real consequences for harmless things said or done online.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very revealing story that hits very close to home for all us. It brings up the increasing issue of self control when it comes to SNS use. With more people joining social networking sites, people are being held accountable for their actions on the sites more and more being of increased visibility.
ReplyDeleteYou're right Ellen about free speech but people should not be mocking people during their job. If on my twitter I make fun of my friend, then I could say its free speech as long as I didn't defame him. But if this wasn't a librarian, and rather a teacher making fun of a student, I'm sure they would have been in trouble. Or if a cop said look at this idiot Im arresting, etc.
ReplyDelete