It seems to me that Twitter magnifies, accelerates and makes more visible the already crazy behaviour that people engage in – railing at other people for their prejudice while not realising that this itself is another form of prejudice; or worse, persecution.

Attacking other people (however stupid and wrong what they said is) doesn’t usually lead anywhere good. Instead it creates more barriers.

The trouble is that attacking other people is easy and fun. Especially when there is no risk of come-back.

In in my view, dialogue is the answer. Engaging people (however hateful their views, however difficult this is personally) in dialogue and discussion is a better, more productive approach.

Social media can allow that but it’s perhaps rarer in the fast, 140 character, tick-box world. I’d be interested to hear of good examples of social media *promoting* such extended dialogue – and actually helping people change their minds.

By the way, why are Aronson’s great books so expensive? That’s a scandal.

(http://www.amazon.co.uk/Social-Animal-Elliot-Aronson/dp/1429203161/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257238426&sr=8-1)

In response to Leif’s point, again I really agree, it would be awesome if the power of Twitter could be harnessed in some collective, controlled way, for the good of climate change, civil justice etc. But even this would be massively open to abuse. I guess the problem, and beauty, of social media is that it is fallible, and doesn’t present controlled messages and opinions in the way that mainstream medias do.

As long as we continue to question cases like those mentioned above, and the human reactions that follow, this awareness will ensure that social is a power for good.

If the flocks of liberal Twitterers were to scrutinise the Daily Mail every single day then we would be obliged to have Moir-esque outrages hourly.

I wish Twitter could help us meddle in politics more, and leave petty outrages to the readers of the Daily Mail.

(I’m writing this as a liberal Twitterer who was outraged by Jan Moir’s horrible article)

As we see when celebrities launch perfume, clothing lines, magazines, record labels etc fans are easily influenced by those they admire, and are prepared to declare this admiration by sporting a branded t-shirt or a famously endorsed cupcake. Twitter is by far the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to announce your ‘fan’ status with a nugget of information (rather than the slightly more anonymous Facebook fan-page option, which is very often set up by another fan and will never be noticed by the actual public figure in question). A re-tweet is an instant vote, and when discussing something topical and exciting, it allows absolutely anybody to express the view of somebody else, claiming it as their own with a simple ‘RT’ of “me too” sentiment.

The Jan Moir article promoted a yawn effect of public reaction, in that, watching somebody else does it gives you an inexplicable urge to do so yourself. Stephen Fry was amongst a huge list of well known figures that tweeted some kind of dismay towards the Daily Mail piece, prompting a nation of doting readers to immediately join him, quite possibly re-tweeting in a heartbeat, then reading the column afterwards or maybe not even at all – after all the developments were there for instant consumption on Twitter during the day.

Just looking at any well read celebrity based blog or website shows us the public desire to claim ‘FIRST’ after a new post is published – it has no value and shows no skill – but is still regarded as an accomplishment by regular readers. The same goes for followers on Twitter, quickly latching on to breaking news gives some a sense of experience, of being part of the news itself. Although somewhat frightening in scale, this kind of public outcry should no longer come as a surprise and is guaranteed to repeat itself regularly, particularly when the power of celebrity is a catalyst for digital drama.

That’s not to say that the original JM article wasn’t reprehensible, just that there seems to be something of an echo effect in Twitter – its so easy to RT something, especially when you are retweeting someone famous – this has a double attraction: 1.with a figure like Stephen Fry you can pretty much trust their intellectual take on an event without having to do too much investigation and thinking yourself and 2. you can ally yourself with that person, effectively name-dropping them into your Twitter stream.

Twitter is great for petitioning but can also obfuscate the deeper issues that might raised in favour of a knee-jerk response. Ultimately its hard to have a reasoned debate in 140 characters…