The Ethics of Retweeting
Yesterday evening, I wrote this on Twitter:
Conservative #speaker elected by a parliament with a Labour majority. Good balance.
Until the next election, anyway!
Then this morning, in my ‘mentions’ list (from @erections, of all people):
Conservative #speaker elected by a parliament with a Labour majority. Good balance.
Until the next erection, anyway! (via @jameswilding)
One letter, big difference!
I’m not sure whether this bothers me or not. On the one hand, it’s funny in a laugh behind your hand, ten-year-old schoolboy sort of way. On the other hand, they’ve cited me as saying something I did not say.
Is it OK to intentionally misrepresent other people’s words for fun? If I was a BBC erection election reporter, this is something that could seriously damage my reputation :-)