Conversations are not publications

I will not repeat or elaborate on the Twitter storm of last week. Others have done this better and more objectively than I could have done myself. On the other hand, there is a lesson to be learned.

Yes, we, end users of social media, have our responsibilities. We need to refrain from posting lies, insults and stupidities. The same rules that apply off-line should apply on-line. On the other hand, we have the right to be pissed off once in a while. I do swear. Occasionally. And people get involved into conflicts all of the time. That's part of how we establish relations, develop opinions and learn to know each other and ourselves.


When blogging became popular about 5 years ago, people learned that the internet was a new medium that allowed you to state your opinion and to reach out to an audience. A blog post is, most of the time, a well considered text that tries to explain, emote or convince. As such, you can consider it a publication with an author. It is only natural to expect the author to take full responsibility for his publication.

But Facebook status updates and Twitter messages are a different beast. Fundamentally different. Status updates are not publications. They are part of a conversation, a conversation between people. That do swear. That do stupid things. Because the essence of a conversation is exchange of ideas and emotions. In real life, expressing your emotions is a little easier then on-line. There's no substitute for banging your head against the wall or slamming your fist on the table. On-line conversations make up for this deficiency by using stronger wording, firm acronyms or emoticons.

When our conversations go on-line, they have to remain conversations. It is not justified to apply the same rules regarding author responsibility to on-line conversations. I do believe there is richness to on-line conversations. I like talking to people on Facebook that I otherwise would only meet once a year. It would be a shame if our culture and legislation would not tolerate the spontaneity of an offline conversation to go online. This would kill all online conversations.

Conversations are not publications. Don't treat them as such.