Twitter's tone

A couple of days ago, a Dutch teen did something harmless — she tweeted. Only it wasn’t seen as so harmless.

The 14-year-old Twitter user, who goes by Sarah, was arrested Monday after tweeting to American Airlines, “@AmericanAir hello my name’s Ibrahim and I’m from Afghanistan. I’m part of Al Qaida and on June 1st I’m gonna do something really big bye.”

American Airlines promptly responded with: “@QueenDemetriax Sarah, we take these threats very seriously. Your IP address and details will be forwarded to security and the FBI.”

This prompted a veritable guilt-storm from Sarah, who began backtracking, saying she was “only a girl” and “I’m so sorry I’m scared now.”

While some see the incident as maybe coming down far too hard on a 14-year-old Dutch girl, American Airlines is sticking to their guns and affirming that this all was out of concern for their passengers and staff. Pretty fair.

This is an extreme case in a series of debates that I’ve had with peers about sarcasm and joking over social media. What’s appropriate, who gets to joke around, how should we handle it and when do we need to lighten up?

Surprisingly enough, I don’t think any type of social media sarcasm or joking should be tolerated, and we should have this sort of strictness whenever this comes about — I say “surprisingly” because I’ve tweeted some pretty lewd things in the past.

This topic is one that hits close to home for many journalists, but especially the Indiana Daily Student as last year a columnist was arrested for a sarcastic tweet about IU on Strike via Twitter.

It’s a situation that we don’t necessarily enjoy talking about, but it demonstrates just how we can all fall victim to the idea that we’re invincible online.

Apparently, even those that want to make nuanced commentary can get the idea that their words will never be held against them.

There are moments on social media that are dripping with mockery and farce, but the thing is that you can’t tell tone in 140 characters.

Most people can hardly distinguish a joking tone in 500-word columns, so we can’t trust them with a tweet.

And we shouldn’t have to trust them. We should just cut it out.
The problem is, though, the Internet’s not going away. And I don’t think social media is necessarily planning on backing out either.

So where do we go from here? How do we instill what’s ethical and what’s within the range of commentary or even social change on social media websites?
This isn’t rhetorical questioning. I legitimately don’t know.

But when 14-year-olds are managing to post jokes about Al Qaida, the issue needs to be brought up and demands more attention than we’ve originally
given it.

For now though, remember what your parents told you back in the third grade — “the Internet’s written in pen” — remember what happened to @QueenDemetriax_.

sjostrow@indiana.edu
@ostrowski_s_j