While reading through some of my RSS feeds recently I came across two feeds with very similar subject headings. Both read something like “Cameron Diaz and Mike Myers banned from Twitter?“. Now, I don’t follow either of these so called A-listers, but I thought it was interesting that these stars were being banned from using a service they either enjoyed using or viewed as a good marketing ploy, because of a clause in their contract. Now, in my opinion that goes against one’s right to free speach, actors should be able to tweet about what ever they like, they are people too, and from what I have seen, most people have opinions and enjoy sharing them.

What was also quite interesting about this incident though, was how quickly different variations of the same story arose. Even in the online world of social media, gossip arises and spreads even faster than gossip in the physical world.

I first noticed this around the time when I began using Twitter. I am sure many people remember the #AmazonFail fiasco. Amazon quickly had to come up with a response to a so called “technical glitch” in the system that removed certain adult titles from its sales rankings. Twitter experienced a surge in rumours over why Amazon had removed certain titles, what an outrage it was, how people knew Amazon was run by no-good-judgemental-bafoons, etc etc. And then Amazon came out with the truth shortly after. People that became valued users of Amazon over a number of years, went from Amazon lovers, to haters, to lovers, in less than 24 hours.

And we all just witnessed the most recent example of the rapid transmission of gossip via social media with the “Baloon boy” incident. Evgeny Morozov actually described the amount of energy put into incident as “enough to prevent at least a few dozen African genocides”. He then goes on to discuss slacktivism. But I also believe that these tools are strongly related to the way we as people socialize, and therefore they are also means of gossip. With these tools being freely available, and widely viewable, the opportunity for gossip is much greater than one’s high school…or is it?

Has the creation of social media tools brought bullying to a whole new level? Although we hope that the creation occurring on social media websites is for purposes to enhance our society, provide valuable opinions, and pass on important information, the content that can be created using these tools can also do harm.

In Paul Sheehan’s collumn back in May he wrote about an incident at an elite girls school, where social media tools were means used to “cyber-bully” one of their classmates. I have a feeling that as social media use increases, so to will incidences such as these.

The nature of many, if not most, social media sites revolve around gossip. Whether it is Facebook, where one can comment on someone else’s photo or status, or blogs, where opinions are freely expressed, these sites are unfiltered and bursting with gossip.

On the site Jezebel, an arguably gossip focused website on its own, she discusses this online incidence of bullying. However she puts a different spin on it, saying, “high school kids have always been cruel: the internet has just provided them with a new platform for spewing their hatred.” Maybe this is true, but I still can’t help but feel that the fact social media sites are for the most part unfiltered, easily accessable, and available outside of the walls of a high school, make it all too easy to spread gossip at a rate faster than many can keep up with.