How Much Risk with Twitter?

How much risk with Twitter? – Earlier this month, Boris Johnson, the
flamboyant mayor of London was riding his bicycle when he came upon a
woman being threatened by a group of teen-aged girls, one of which was
brandishing an iron bar. Mayor Johnson spontaneously scared off the
attackers and escorted the victim to her home. What makes this private
example of “Good Samaritan-ship” particularly interesting is that within
moments, the victim had micro-blogged on Twitter, explaining her ordeal
- and the identity of her rescuer – to her 800 “followers”.

In case you haven’t yet encountered Twitter, here’s a summary:
* Twitter is a social network messaging system, limiting messages
to 140 characters (including spaces and punctuation). That’s right, no
room to be verbose.
* earlier this year, Twitter was ranked as the world’s third
most-used social networking site, with 50 million current users.
(Consider Canada’s current population of 33.5 million, to provide some
sense of scale.)

If information is power, then Twitter has proven it can put that power
in the hands of the individual.

When a Utah-based washing machine owner was frustrated with her Maytag
product and the follow-up service experience fell below expectations,
she vented on Twitter. It is estimated her “tweet” reached more than
1.4 million followers. Although Maytag responded in a day, and fixed
the appliance within 3, the brand damage was immeasurable. The lesson:
a public relations disaster is only 140 characters away.

But with that type of reach, what potential exists for disseminating
mis- or disinformation??

Tim Horton’s found out: the coffee chain had agreed to supply coffee for
a rally in Rhode Island organized by a pro-family organization.
Special-interest groups reacted – including using Twitter – accusing the
company of being homophobic. Some of the transmissions contained false
rumours; but the result was Tim Horton’s used its own Twitter account to
post a link to a press release announcing its withdrawal from the event

Twitter may be one more medium having the capacity to influence – maybe
control – the conversation. What are the risks and remedies when
distorted information, or reality-revision, causes real damage to
reputations – corporate or personal??