How many twitterverses can YOU recite?

We tweet family photos!

Do you twitter?
I do. I want to read up to the minute news, and it is a good source of information and healthcare news, specifically.
I love discourse and reading other's opinions.

Love our trees,
I tweet new blog posts.

I don't actually have any true 'friends' that follow me. Most are interested, as I, in education or healthcare. Most of the people I follow, I follow out of interest. Many of my followers I do not know, nor am I interested in their services!

• I follow my universities (I am alumnus of 4).
• I follow my Retired Teachers of Ontario association. 
• I follow White Coat, Black Art, for obvious reasons! 
• I follow a number of news agencies, e.g., CBC, CTV, as well as individual reporters who often post up-to-the-minute stories and some fabulous photos.

• I follow groups that post information on healthcare, although most are flogging their products or services. 
• I follow the news in Ottawa, the nearest large town to me, and where some of my kids and both grandkids live.
• I follow people who send witty tweets, succinct commentaries on life and our times.

Unfortunately, there are many who tweet banality, at expense of information. Some try to have discussions, in 140 characters, which falls miserably flat. If you think it's hard to have a reasonable debate by e-mail, try tweets!

We tweet grandchild visits!
And thank yous for dinner.

So many are looking for a simple way to flog themselves. I eschew those who blatantly marketing something. I want to share news, information, and the things I've learned 32 years as a qualified teacher, 32 years as a mother, writer, researcher and citizen interested in politics and passions of photography and culture.

Some tweet traffic issues!

Some have hijacked Twitter, which is truly looking at making a profit, in the way YouTube, and Google have done. To that end, there are those paid to tweet. Those paid to put on (illegal) ads. Illegally purporting to be someone who you are not, putting on paid ads. If you are posting an ad, according to the law, you must disclose it.
Fake identities, with people flogging products, followers sending direct messages offering me products I do not need nor want.

Two of my photos illegally stolen
- for the purpose of a poster.
If she'd asked, I'd have granted her permission.
But she didn't bother.

The twitterverse, as well as the Internet, doesn't understand the differences between US and Canadian healthcare and education, my two areas of expertise. Nor do the millions of US bloggers, floggers, and marketers care. People get up in arms about injustices that are the result of culture, and laws, but many issues just do not apply in Canada.

Many compare media news, with poorly done or badly interpreted research reports. This is the 'healthcare is broken' or the 'getting tough on crime' myths; propaganda or rhetoric that floats in cyberspace. The former has a hidden agenda of demanding two-tier care; the latter Harper's agenda to pass this ridiculous crime bill.

I am loathe to knock Twitter. There are great times when we gather information quickly. Yet, it is abused by those using it not for social purposes but for social marketing.

Did you hear of the controversy between Anton Kutcher, in a Twitter War with Village Voice?

But then, he posted photos of Demi Moore's naked butt. Seriously.
Then, he sent out a tweet about how terrible it was Paterno was fired, not knowing that he failed to report child sex-abuse Paterno had witnessed.

Ashton Kutcher turns Twitter over to pros after sending Joe Paterno ...

Yonge & Dundas, my old haunting ground!

That was stupid. Incredibly stupid. Apparently, he saw the info on an information board in a city, and fired off the tweet. In this new social media craziness, where more people follow me than I have friends, it is simply marketing agents trying to send me information on their products and services.
In his wisdom (?) he has now hired his own firm, Katalyst Media, to check his feed to "ensure the quality of its content."


While Kutcher said he enjoys Twitter’s ability to bring him closer to friends and fans, he thinks it “has grown into a mass publishing platform, where ones tweets quickly become news that is broadcast around the world and misinformation becomes volatile fodder for critics.”

verisimilitude

MEANING:

noun:
1. The quality of appearing to be true or real.
2. Something that has the appearance of being true or real.