Let me start off by saying that I am a 35 year old, married, mother of two, property-owning, tax-paying, law-abiding citizen. So my problems with this have nothing to do with trying to hide bad behavior.
Earlier this week many of us Medicine Hat Tweeps (Tweep - A person with a mutual following on Twitter) were surprised when we discovered that we were being followed by the Medicine Hat City Police. I've followed them for a while, since they tweet out information about calls, arrests, etc., but they weren't following many (or any, I don't actually know the numbers) of us back, which was perfectly fine with me. I considered the police account to be an information service, rather than an invitation for interaction. So when I saw that they were following me I tweeted this:
Is that not why Twitter has block features or account locking capabilities. I feel if someone is too lazy to monitor or keep tabs on how the expose themselves on the internet or social media than this type of thing is to be expected. People can still practice safe internet habits well enjoying what the internet and social media have to offer.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - Yes, you can block whoever you want. It's the principle of the matter I'm talking about. It's not myself I'm trying to protect, it's everyone.
DeleteGood post, I appreciate your view point.
ReplyDeleteI just want to also point out; at any time BEFORE the MHPS started following all of us tweeps back, they could have looked at any one of our unlocked twitter timelines and made the very same conclusions that you're worried they're going to make now.
I also fail to see where they could use what we say against us unless we're already a person of interest. If anything, the interaction we have now with the MHPS account will only lead to a positive relationship with the officers of Medicine Hat.