Twitter; not just for egocentric morons.

Twitter often portrayed as the ADHD side of social media, and we all see the stories about people tweeting about what they had for breakfast.

Although I don't really use twitter often, I find it really interesting. I think that there is an ever developing push for the freedom of information and knowledge. This certainly isn't new, but there is a greater opportunity for it to flourish online.

Open source software, user driven content, indie developers and publishers have been with the net from day one, and there are many high profile developers, academics and business people who are strong advocates of accessibility, transparency and an all round DIY attitude. Have no idea what the hell open source is? Have a look at this page.

Another example of the fight for transparency and access to information is whistle blower website Wikileaks. I'm sure that everyone  has heard about Wikileaks now, but if not check out their website.

And how does all this relate to social media like Twitter?

Twitter means that people can trade information, links and pictures in real time which otherwise may have taken hours or even days to hit the conventional media. Even then it can be skewed, censored or edited.

For examples of this check out this Time article Iran Protests: Twitter, the Medium of the Movement  about the role Twitter played in the post election protests in Iran last year. Another example is the Mount Merapi eruption where twitter and facebook had faster and more reliable news than major news networks.  See this article from the Jakarta Globe about how Twitter is being used by Volunteers Use Twitter to Help Victims of Indonesia Eruptions .

Even yesterday, after the announcement that Wikileaks had published a new round of leaked memos and documents the high traffic use of the hashtag #wikileaks almost bought twitter to it's knees. Obviously, the huge level of traffic means that it was something that people were certainly talking about.

Not that information in the blogosphere or the twitterverse should all be taken as gospel, ( indeed maybe we should apply our distrust and skepticism to all media, not just digital media)  but I feel really optimistic about the future of news and information access in the digital age.

I hope that these sorts of websites will lead to a more democratic way of transmitting news and current affairs in the future.

Any thoughts?

*edit* oh, and you can find me on twitter at @chelsearpayne.