An Internet Life

What happens when micro-blogging turns macro-psychotic? On February 11th, marketing consultant April Dunford posted an annoyed message to Twitter, the mircro-blogging site, about being condescendingly scolded by a newspaper reporter. Although she named no names, the reporter in question, David George-Cosh of the National Post, saw her ‘tweet’ and took offense in a big way. His venomous, profanity-laced responses started an embarrassing (to him) Twitter fight that played out in public for the whole world to see.

This was April Dunford’s first post: “Reporter to me ‘When the media calls you, you jump, OK!?’ Why, when you called me and I’m not selling? Newspapers will get what they deserve”

You can check out Mr. George-Cosh’s response — and the subsequent war of words — after the break.

Twitter makes all posts public — each time a user writes an entry, all the user’s ‘followers’ on the site can see it. Responses to posts are public as well. Why David George-Cosh elected not to use the system’s private ‘direct message’ function is beyond us, and it’s safe to say that this incident will undoubtedly have negative repercussions for both Mr. George-Cosh and his employer, the National Post. It serves as a potent reminder that the Internet is no longer the sanctuary of anonymity it once was — with social networking now a fixture of mainstream society, how you behave online sends a powerful message. [From: MediaStyle]