An account claiming to belong to former New York Observer editor Peter Kaplan caused a stir on Twitter last week when it declared it didn't want anyone re-tweeting it. In fact, it went so far as to threaten to sue those who did.
How much control do we have over content we produce online, and how much control should we have?
Tallulah Habib, social media activist, ITWeb
The account, @real_kaplan, was started - word has it - in response to two fake accounts, both belonging to former Observer employees, that tweeted supposed words of Kaplan and gained Internet fame. Though there is still a strong chance this account is also a fake, it is still an interesting case. For, on Twitter, one usually tries to gain as many re-tweets as possible, not prevent them. Yet, @real_kaplan is adamant that he doesn't want his words appearing on anyone else's stream. Whether credited or not.
On 10 June, he tweeted: “POLICY: If you 'Re-Tweet' me without asking first, I will take down your name and you will face legal action for copyright infringement.”
Digital happiness?
He later added: “Note to my new followers: This isn't easy, I know. My re-tweet policy takes some getting used to. It may even give you strange new feelings. But once you get used to it (my re-tweet policy), you will find you're actually a lot happier with your entire Twitter experience. I know, I know it would seem to fly in the face of logic, but there it is, digital happiness at last.”
His aim, he claimed, was to singlehandedly change the way Twitter works so that people are given proper credit for the content (in this case, tweets) they produce. A giveaway that this might be a fake account is that 'it' responded when I queried his logic. @real_kaplan explained: “Re-tweets make your feed popular. Popular feeds get Broadway deals. Many cases of Twitter feeds leading to book deals, Broadway shows.”
Now, whether the account is just attempting to attract attention, or is a reaction to the fame garnered by the two previous fake Kaplan accounts is anyone's guess. Whether Kaplan would have any success suing over re-tweets is also doubtful.
All that aside, the @real_kaplan tale brings up the question: how much control do we have over content we produce online, and how much control should we have?
User-generated content has become a cash-cow for many companies, after all. The sole reason YouTube exists is because it offers a platform for such content. People are anxious to share what they create because it brings them Internet fame - which can sometimes lead to real fame (to bring out the old chestnut of an example: Justin Bieber). Another platform that relies on user-generated content is the creative social network, DeviantArt, which allows artists who may otherwise have gone unnoticed to network and showcase their work. A platform like this brings not only benefit to the site owners, but to the users too, who are able to sell their work and take commissions from the audience they wouldn't have reached otherwise (would Van Gogh have died poor if such a platform was around, one might ask?)
Of course, the flip side is that such platforms leave room for abuse. There have been numerous cases of art from DeviantArt being shared across the Internet, credited to the wrong people or intentionally stolen and placed on merchandise that is sold without the artist's knowledge or permission. In those cases, the artist sees nothing of the reward for the hard work.
Accumulating social currency
Copyright exists, it is often argued, to reward creativity. If people do not get credit for that which they produce, they'll have no motivation to produce it. Increasingly, the Internet has given us a taste of a credit that does not involve money, but is also valuable: social currency. We become valuable members of digital communities because of the things we produce to give to them. This can be anything from art to amusing tweets. It's not just production that makes us valuable though, but also 'curation'. If you have a knack for finding good content and sharing it, you are also likely to receive some of the glory. Which is, I suppose, @real_kaplan's argument. The stats show that the vast majority of those online are not producers, but sharers.
The Internet age has, it can be argued, produced a new kind of middle man - the middle man who makes the social networks tick by using share buttons and re-tweets. Is there anything wrong with that?
I'd argue there isn't. For without the shares and the re-tweets, how will the original content producers receive the exposure they deserve? Even if it was possible to prevent people from re-tweeting you, it would be a silly idea. People should be able to spread your words far and wide, as long as they are correctly attributed.
Perhaps there is a happy medium between the world of old and the new one, a medium where proper credit is given by curators to those whose content they share, so that everyone gets a taste of both the great content and the glory.
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