experience matters

Alyssa Rosengarden | Critical Mass Chicago

Do you remember when Facebook was a college-only network? You could only join the website if you had a valid university email and you knew, no matter what, the only people that would be able to find you would be college buddies. As a measly high school-er at the time, I was very disappointed that I would not be able to join too. But lo and behold, right when I became a high school senior, the flood gates opened and everyone was able to join Facebook. And in an instant, everything changed.

All social networking sites have come miles from where they started. Even Foursquare, which is relatively new to the game, has changed dramatically since it first went live. Location based services are now all the rage, while “liking” something has become a universally understood verb. But now what? What is next for these communication beasts?  These sites create ‘citizen journalists’ out of all of us and people are taking this responsibility in all different directions. In fact, many people have accepted the role of breaking news on sites like Twitter and Facebook, which opens up a whole new can of worms.

Citizen journalism through social media sites has become a recently accepted trend. People Tweet about political elections and World Cup winners even before news outlets have a chance to process the facts. So when it comes to being citizen journalists (as we all have) and that little issue of freedom of speech, should there be a line drawn when it comes to breaking news?

Take for example, General Stanley McChrystal. Most of you probably followed the story about how the General made inappropriate remarks to a Rolling Stone reporter during an interview. Afterwards, you probably found out that he stepped down from his position and was replaced by General David Petraeus. But you probably also found this entire story out before the issue of Rolling Stone took the stand. The story was buzzing around the Internet, and particularly social networking sites, before anyone could contain it. Yes, everyone was going to find out eventually. But is it really our responsibility to break news as big (and possibly sensitive) as this? According to Twitter and our very own government, yes it is.

Last year during the Iranian elections, Twitter was scheduled to perform site maintenance. However, the US government asked them to postpone this work in order to allow Iranian citizens discuss and protest the elections in real time. They became the real journalists of the story and their freedom of speech was upheld despite the sensitive nature of the story.

Since these sites are in real time, what better way to alert everyone of important news or progressing stories?  But people fall on both sides of this delicate debate. On the one hand, people should have the right to post their opinions and break news through Twitter if they so choose. On the other hand, some of these issues and debates may be sensitive or perhaps even offensive, and the people posting about them may be less than educated on the topic.

But isn’t that what they are here for?  To get people involved, talking and relating to one another, whether they agree or not. If we start pointing finger and revoking some of the freedom that these sites offer, then what would be the point? Though these sites have come a long way from where they once began, the basic values of free speech are still intact and breaking news, no matter how controversial, should be no different. Breaking news through social media is a way to link people together by giving everyone an open forum to discuss and debate. So go ahead, everyone. Continue Tweeting about taking your dog on a walk and going to lunch with a friend, but if you stumble upon some huge breaking news, let the rest of us in on it too.  Take your roles as citizen journalists seriously and continue breaking your news through these sites so that we can keep this sense of debate, outrage and passion alive in social media.

Alyssa Rosengarden is a marketing coordinator intern at our Chicago office.