#KeepCalmAndCarryOn Tweeting
Social media users, the stock market, and (some of) the world at large ran amuck on Tuesday when the Associated Press Twitter account was hacked and tweeted this erroneous information: “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.”
All it took was 140 characters. These “small bursts of information” can send us into an uproar, make us laugh, cry, fume, panic, and send the market into a tailspin. “Don’t let the small size fool you – you can discover a lot in a little space,” as Twitter’s ‘About’ page aptly puts it.
The interceptors of the Associated Press Twitter account, hackers loyal to the Syrian Electronic Army, figured out what millions find so compelling about that “little space.” In a tweet claiming responsibility for the hack hoax, the group said “Ops! @AP get owned by Syrian Electronic Army! #SEA #Syria #ByeByeObama.”
The “little space” that contains our social media content can wreak havoc on our psyche and actions. That the market took a temporary nose-dive, eroding over “$200 billion of value” within minutes of the hack, demonstrates the volatility of human emotions. We’re now trained to react and not think about what has occurred. We’re now hungrier for instant updates and news stories to get constant, capsule-sized information packets. In other words, the little spaces are gradually becoming the only space. We wear our emotions on our digital sleeves – on our Facebook status and in our Tweets. The only constant guarantee is change.
This week’s Twitter hoax compromising the Twitter accounts of 60 Minutes, 48 Hours and CBS Denver, proves how influential social media has become in breaking news to the public. The net is replacing the pyramid as the reigning model for the spread of information, and while these platforms have democratized, and to some extent crowdsourced the news-making and reporting processes, they also harken back to a schoolyard mentality where the currencies of power are popularity and exclusivity and the ability to exploit in-group jargon. We’ve become less concerned about what is actually happening and more concerned about who has found out what first, and the quality of what we have traditionally understood ‘news’ to be is being diluted.
With the Securities and Exchange Commission recently approving social media as a platform to distribute company information, this incident reminds us that outlets such as Facebook and Twitter are not infallible. Venerated news agencies like the AP are just as vulnerable as lesser-known entities, if not more so.
Hackers have discovered that social media venues can be used as a platform to invoke cyberterrorism. Cyberterrorism can play on people’s emotions and make people react and act in certain ways, just as the market was in flux for several intense, hand-wringing minutes. This tactic may in fact be more effective at creating chaos within political and financial circles. Internet marketing companies like mine have their work cut out for them. Given that much of our daily lives revolve around social media, this may be the best way to control public behavior.
The biggest challenge for Twitter will be to ramp up their security measures. The company recently unveiled its roll-out plan for a new two-step verification system. While increasing security measures may help minimize the risk of future incidents, it doesn’t mean hackers won’t always be there to stay one step ahead of digital security attempts. However many walls you build, there will always be potential intruders out there who will relish the challenge of breaking them down. How can we decrease the likelihood of these cyberattacks? Is tightening security measures our only option? Social media allows us to create any online identity for ourselves, so how can we really check to see if an account belongs to the person it is allegedly claimed to?
This incident reflects the increasingly connected world we now live in and our reliance on exchanging information with one another. As the social media giants find their feet in the tug-of-war between online private and cybersecurity, social media users should stay calm and keep their knee-jerk reactions in their pants.
Brooke Nepo graduated from Binghamton University in 2010 with a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Law. She is currently a nationally competitive weightlifter with Olympic aspirations, and blogs for the award-winning social media agency fishbat, Inc.
Posted in Social Networking.
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