Why it's better to dither a while before you Twitter

As acts of “mischievousness” go it was a very costly one. Last November Sally Bercow, wife of Commons Speaker John, logged on to social media site Twitter.

It was two days after a Newsnight report wrongly implicated former Conservative Party treasurer Lord McAlpine in allegations of sex abuse of children in the 1970s and 1980s.

Bercow made a decision that would have major implications for McAlpine, herself, and serve as a major warning for Twitter users. She wrote: “Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*”

Six months later the tweet would come back to haunt her as the High Court found her guilty of defaming the 71-year-old. Bercow had denied the tweet was defamatory, arguing she did not tweet “with malice” and that she was “being mischievous, as was so often my style on Twitter”.

The court, however, agreed with McAlpine’s contention that the tweet pointed “the finger of blame” in his direction during a media frenzy.

Justice Tugendhat said: “I find that the tweet meant in its natural and ordinary defamatory meaning that the claimant was a paedophile who was guilty of sexually abusing boys.”

The action was settled with McAlpine receiving an undisclosed settlement from Bercow. While the warring parties disagreed on whether the tweet was defamatory, there was agreement that the ruling served as a warning to Twitter users.

“The ruling should be seen as a warning to all social media users,’’ Bercow said. “Things can be held to be seriously defamatory, even when you do not intend them to be defamatory and do not make any express accusation. On this, I have learned my own lesson the hard way.”

Speaking for McAlpine, solicitor Andrew Reid added: “Mr Justice Tugendhat’s judgment is one of great public interest and provides both a warning to, and guidance for, people who use social media.”

It’s a fascinating case, won by McAlpine on the basis of the suggestive nature of the tweet rather than an explicit allegation on the part of Bercow. The final two words — ‘innocent face’ — sealed her fate. “There is no sensible reason for including those words in the tweet if they are to be taken as meaning that the defendant simply wants to know the answer to a factual question,” the judge said.

It’s a timely wake-up call. Social media sites in general and Twitter in particular can be an entertaining, addictive, and helpful resource. It allows the public to interact directly with celebrities, sports stars, and politicians.

For those of us working in the newspaper industry, Twitter can be invaluable. In this era of instant news, most stories break on Twitter. When you’re working against a deadline and a story breaks late, every second counts. The few minutes between a link to a breaking story being posted on a Twitter page and copy emerging via news agencies can be the difference between hitting a deadline and missing it.

The recent sacking of Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini is a good example. The story emerged via a link to a statement posted by the club’s official Twitter page with less than 10 minutes to our deadline. By being able to access the statement instantly those of us on the sports desk were able to put the story together and meet our deadline.

The challenge of Twitter — and it’s often a difficult one — is to separate fact from fiction, the relevant from the mundane, and knowing where the boundaries are; a task at which Bercow, in the eyes of the court, failed.

Anyone can tweet anything and people need to be wary of information emerging via the medium. I lost count of the amount of times Margaret Thatcher was reported to have died before actual death earlier this year.

Paul McCartney, Chris Brown, Eddie Murphy, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, Rowan Atkinson, Missy Elliott, Britney Spears, Harrison Ford, George Clooney, Natalie Portman, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman are among the many celebrities wrongly reported to have died via social media sites.

At least Freeman had a sense of humour about his ‘death’. “Like Mark Twain, I keep reading that I have died,” he said. “I hope those stories are not true but if they are, I’m happy to report that my afterlife seems identical to my life when I was alive.”

Closer to home Miriam O’Callaghan got herself in hot water after tweeting about the death of Gerry Ryan before the news had been confirmed while more recently, terminally ill singer Bernie Nolan was wrongly reported to have died on Twitter.

Users need to be careful what they tweet. Using Twitter as a means of expressing frustration about your job is not a wise move. Yet, surprisingly many disgruntled employees do just that, using hashtags like #ihatemyjob.

Remarkably, researchers from the University of Hanover found 22,000 people posted critical tweets about their job in one week of June 2012 alone. At best, tweets expressing frustration won’t endear employees to their boss. At worst, critical tweets could — if ruled as a breach of trust — result in dismissal.

Tweets are a bit like political opinion polls — a snapshot in time rather than anything of lasting significance. The level of aggression can be amazing. Soccer pundits and politicians get particularly hammered on social media and I have to confess that I’m often among the many guilty of regularly venting my spleen in 140 characters or less. (Eamon Dunphy’s criticism of the recent Champions League final got me particularly active on my keyboard.)

Perhaps there’s an element of the mob mentality at play: safety in numbers. Perhaps too, social media sites facilitate a means of releasing the anger and frustration within Irish society built up after five long and difficult years of austerity and bad news. The downside to having a Twitter debate/rant/row with a fellow tweeter is the limitations of only having 140 characters to work with.

Sometimes though, Twitter aggression can be humorous. Just ask Chris Hoy. In Dec 2011 Hoy, the most successful Olympic cyclist of all time, was mistakenly on the receiving end of a string of abusive messages from Tottenham fans enraged by the performance of referee Chris Foy in the club’s 2-1 defeat to Stoke days earlier.

Hoy took the abuse in good spirit. “Just for the record 1) I don’t need glasses and 2) I do not lead a double life as an English premier league ref. That’s Chris Foy,” he tweeted, before adding, “Still getting some rather amusing grief from Spurs fans! On the plus side I’ve learned some new 4 letter words today. #FoyNotHoy.”

Ultimately the golden rule whether you’re a politician’s wife, someone fixated on death, a disgruntled employee, or a frustrated sports fan is simple: Be careful what you tweet.