The old gossip mill, refurbished

Shashi Tharoor and Twitter notwithstanding, I had to experience it for myself to understand exactly how social networking can work to your disadvantage the moment someone takes it into their heads to use the power of an online following (a committed audience) to malign you! Of course, it can also be used to build reputation and foster credibility, but all that can be demolished in a second if a 140-character accusation (however incoherent or poorly substantiated) broadcast into the Twitterverse is then picked up as a status message on Facebook now accessible to friends and friends of friends (if you so desire) and finally talked about over the phone and around tables at lunch... you get my drift.

Which is, in a sense, what happened with the Lalit Modi-Shashi Tharoor Twitter war. Their followers got the message, they passed it on to their followers, who commented on it, and among these followers are some who have access to other forms of media as well, and soon it is on Page One of the national dailies.

While my life is not of the kind that is likely to make Page One of anything (thank goodness!), I do have a circle of friends who overlap across my different spheres of activity, and Facebook has been one way to keep in touch or at least have a window into their lives, and offer them one into mine. Posts on Facebook and Twitter have been fairly innocuous in my case, ranging from events of interest in and around work, family and the rest of life, to sharing ideas and information found on the web and elsewhere. In return, one has access to things people draw and like from their own reading. Posts about people are generally updates on what they're doing, how they're feeling, or milestones they or their children have crossed.

Given the genial nature of most interactions, I was surprised to be told that someone had posted on their Facebook page a comment about me, one definitely not intended to be complimentary or admiring, rather, the contrary. Since the "allegation" in this case had no basis and I have nothing to defend or worry about in terms of my reputation being affected among friends (or friends of friends), I did not set about correcting any impression that may have been created.

But it all seemed rather like the gossip mill spinning out of control, where a story is told over and over again, completely divorced from context and background, so that what people hear several versions down the line bears little relationship to the kernel that may have got on the grapevine in the first place! The issue with media like Facebook and Twitter is somewhat different. Hate speech and racist or otherwise targeted derogatory comments are one thing; spreading misinformation about a supposed "friend" on Facebook is another. The tools used for communicating on social networks enable personal editing/writing and global posting, so while a comment may be intensely conveyed on a phone conversation with a sympathetic listener, it is intensely composed and posted for all to see on a social network. Clay Shirky, in Group as User: Flaming and the design of social software, (http://shirky.com/writings/group_user.html) says, "Flaming is not just personal expression, it is a kind of performance, brought on in a social context." Read in this way, posting a negative or damaging comment on Facebook or Twitter or Orkut, as one's status message, is akin to standing on stage and saying it out loud, saying as much about yourself as about the subject.

Perhaps this gives the originator of gossip that much more power--to say, "Hey, I said it first, now do you what you will with this piece of information!" And then every person who responds or takes it forward has the opportunity to share that stage and the possibility for extended monologue it offers!