Politics on Twitter

[Greg Hollingsworth]

This weeks episode featured a lengthy discussion on people talking politics on Twitter, which piqued my interest.

As someone who occasionally engages in political conversations on Twitter, I can see both sides of the argument, but I haven't unfollowed someone because of it.

I thought the description of Twitter as "Speaker's Corner" was a perfect analogy. I've been there, it's a ton of fun to bounce back and forth between speakers and that's one of the things I love about twitter, being able to follow multiple discussions and pick and choose which ones to take part in.

What do you guys think, should we treat twitter the way we treat dinner at the in-laws? Should politics, religion, etc... be off limits on twitter?

[Brad P. from NJ]

I have to say that I think Twitter really is an all-topics platform... as are Plurk, Pownce, Brightkite... etc.

I've had posts come out of left field from all kinds of people. There's my personal favourite which is where a PodCaster know for one set of topics, popped out with a comment on an entirely other set of topics. Let's just say, I actually did a double take when I saw this post.

I didn't unfollow him. I did ask what was up... He was just using twitter to share what he was doing.

So, I've gotta say that the question "What are you doing?" is intended to find out what you're doing, not what you're doing that won't offend the person who reads it.

I'd seen some conversations pop back and forth, and the question came out "have you unfollowed people because of conflicts?" We all pretty much agreed that if we had unfollowed people because of conflicts that we would be cave-dwelling, unmarried hermits...

While I totally respect people unfollowing me or anyone else because of something I say, I don't think there are topics that I'm gonna make off-limits.

The one thing I did hear in the show, and have heard in a couple of other shows, would be for Twitter, and Plurk, and Pownce, and Brightkite, to start implementing filters, groups, and other methods for us to be able to create spaces of types of conversations. That would probably make us all a bit happier, and give Mike the "mute" button he wants.

[Greg Hollingsworth]

Filtering would certainly be nice, but to be honest, I follow more than 1,000 people and I would say that I read maybe 10% of all the tweets that come through twhirl on a daily basis.

Perhaps I'm in the minority (because I am not constantly checking twitter and I don't receive updates on my cell) but it seems to me that it takes more effort to un-follow someone than to ignore them. We all have friends in our real lives that we ignore on occasion, and those are people we know and interact with.

I don't talk politics, religion, etc... that often on Twitter but I certainly wouldn't un-follow someone because they were talking about one thing too often. I try not to because 140 characters isn't really enough for me to say what I want to say, that's what my blog is for, but I do enjoy the links that I see through twitter and sharing what I am reading (which is quite often political in nature).

Twitter is indeed an open platform, that's part of it's beauty and the reason why it's being rapidly adopted. If there were no politics on Twitter then CNN wouldn't be using it, nor would members of Congress, which would inherently limit the exposure it has and will receive, and that would be a bad thing.