News - PCC rules Twitter messages are ‘not private’

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Tweets fair game for journos.

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Read more.

Anyone who has any expectation that twitter, a public message broadcasting system, should have any privacy at all, should probably forego reproduction, or at the very least be relieved from sensitive positions, like say, being an official for transport for London.

If the account was private then surely the tweets would be considered private?

I must admit, I'm confused by the contradicting information here. By virtue of the fact that you had to subscribed to read the original tweet, surely that makes this private. I'm not sure how re-tweeting works - is there any control over whether something is re-tweeted, or is this simply something that one of the 700 original tweet recipients can then do, in which case it is they who have broadcast her material to the press, and are therefore in breach of her privacy.

Can someone clarify? I really don't want to have to read "twits" from some drunk who goes to work for the Government hung over in order to find out how Twitter works...

I don't have a Twitter account myself, I just know a few Tweeters off by heart. So for example @brinkgame is a public Twitter account where anyone (regardless if they are joined or not) can view the tweets. Where as a small minority of Tweeters have set their account to private. Where you need to have an account and to be following them.

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Originally Posted by Tattysnuc

I must admit, I'm confused by the contradicting information here. By virtue of the fact that you had to subscribed to read the original tweet, surely that makes this private. I'm not sure how re-tweeting works - is there any control over whether something is re-tweeted, or is this simply something that one of the 700 original tweet recipients can then do, in which case it is they who have broadcast her material to the press, and are therefore in breach of her privacy.

Can someone clarify? I really don't want to have to read "twits" from some drunk who goes to work for the Government hung over in order to find out how Twitter works...

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Anyone with a Twitter account can go to Twitter.com/myusername and view all your tweets. I think there is the ability to make your page private, but she had not done this. Twitter is as public as any basic web page.

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Originally Posted by Mblaster

Anyone with a Twitter account can go to Twitter.com/myusername and view all your tweets. I think there is the ability to make your page private, but she had not done this. Twitter is as public as any basic web page.

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Even at that, tweets have no serious access controls. There's no reasonable expectation of privacy, at all.

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Originally Posted by aidanjt

Anyone who has any expectation that twitter, a public message broadcasting system, should have any privacy at all, should probably forego reproduction, or at the very least be relieved from sensitive positions, like say, being an official for transport for London.

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QFT!
If she wants to broadcast inane crap then it's tough luck when it gets re broadcast elsewhere.
I hope she either has been or is about to get sacked from her position so some currently unemployed, competent person can take her place.

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Originally Posted by aidanjt

Even at that, tweets have no serious access controls. There's no reasonable expectation of privacy, at all.

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Gotta say, that's exactly how I see it.

If you aren't prepared to risk seeing it in public, don't say it on a site like Twitter. For that matter, don't say it on any such social media sites, and don't post it it in a forum, either. More than once, I've provisionally deleted something a member has said and then PM'd to ask how it'll go down if their employer reads it?

Don't get me wrong, if you (anyone, I mean, not aidan) wants to slag off their boss or company, then providing it's nor actually defamatory, go for it, Just don't cry about it if you then get fired. So if someone wanted their comments undeleted, after they'd thought about it, I'd (subject to that proviso) undelete it .... at their risk. ;)

Oh, and so far, nobody has requested that undeletion, once they thought about it.

But ..... if some archiving spyder has picked it up in the meantime, they'll be pretty much nothing we or anyone else can do about it.

So don't tweet it if you want it private. That's my view. I'm not a fan of the PCC, and by and large hold the opinion they they aren't 'fit for purpose', but this time, I think they called it right.