Twitter Changing Media Distribution Faster Than Ever

   

   Twitter is able to be used beyond just putting out your own thoughts. Journalists and media companies are able to put out new information almost constantly. This comes with a price thought. The faster you're able to put something out, the faster someone else wants to be. This can be good for media companies, but now for the general public. This can lead to an array of misinformation quickly. Users can just consume the articles or tweets being posted and take that as fact right then and there. It could come out a few minutes or even days later that what was posted was false information, but the damage is likely done. Not everyone will be able to get the message something they consumed was untrue. 

    Twitter hasn't always been the villain. Twitter has done plenty of good like journalists being able to spread information back to different countries about the uprising in Egypt. We would have never known about anything quite like that if it wasn't for Twitter being the main source of communication. Even within the last year, Twitter has changed the landscape of how we discuss huge movements. The Black Lives Matter protests earlier this year were huge. Twitter managed to even spread the word of different protests and marches going on so others were able to join in. This did a ton of good for the movement and Twitter was even able to amplify Black voices across the platform to get those who need to be heard out there. This sadly also lead to some who didn't agree or believe in the movement spreading plenty of misinformation. This created a false enemy of Antifa or even just insane conspiracies about the tragic death of George Floyd. Too many people are using the internet now and people aren't careful about how they use it. 

    On the other hand, Twitter can spread misinformation like wildfire. Within the past year they've added plenty of different markers for more information on the political landscape and more specifically Covid-19. Covid-19 took users for a whirlwind since so much misinformation is spread about it. This is only possible because it went global. This affected almost everyone's lives in some way. This gave rise to different theories of 5G cell towers being the cause or even being created in a lab as a bioweapon. There's too little actual information about the virus so a lot of people took these and ran with it. There weren't more facts than things you can do to prevent getting it. 

    Another topic that came and went was Kim Jong-un having a heart attack. Twitter blew up rapidly with constant information about the dictator either being fine or dead. Some new companies even reported him being dead. This happened so rapidly in just a couple of days that some just forgot about it. This is a serious accusation to make against such a huge dictator too. The entire world is watching us and something that huge and such a huge misinformation pool can lead to some serious consequences. 

    The one topic I chose to do for my Twitter project was how superhero movies may "go the way of the western". Superhero movies are giant moneymakers for Hollywood and it's hard to imagine seeing them go away, but eventually general audiences will stop going and being interested. With the pandemic, movies have been out of theaters for a long time; but when they come back will people be excited still to go see a new superhero movie? I'm interested in how the landscape of movies will change over the next few years since a whole year of production disappeared and now Hollywood is backed up with productions. 

    I followed Marvel Studios since they are the main guys putting out so many superhero movies each and every year. I also followed The Hollywood Reporter since they broke the article about Spielberg making the comment how superhero movies will "go the way of the western". My final account I followed was one I would never follow and that was Rudy Giulliani. Which reading through his tweets trying to find a "coherent" one to respond to I got a headache because I just cannot believe anything this guys are able to get away with putting out there for people. 

   Using Twitter like this was different for me because this is the furthest from how I use Twitter. I usually just follow artists, comedians, and some internet content creators and that's about it. I don't engage quite like this. When I tweet about things, it's usually some stupid thought that pops in my head. I don't tweet at politicians or famous people. I mostly keep to myself and end up finding nice art and some funny content along the way. Very rarely does politics seep through the cracks. Tweeting in third person was odd as well since social media is really self centered. People typically use it all about themselves and how they feel rather than just blanket statements.