The Guardian rounds up the best comments, questions and answers from our recent live chat on tomorrow's journalist – what tools and skills will they need to survive and thrive?
Type in “politicians” into Google and “politicians on Twitter” comes up as the top search suggestion. Twitter is a website for people to post about their hobbies, and to tell their followers what they had for dinner, and anything else that would be too trivial to have a real conversation about. It should not be used to host controversial debates, especially when the ‘tweeter’ has keep their argument to 140 characters.
Diane Abbott is a perfect example of why politicians should not use Twitter. When the Labour shadow minister posted a tweet saying “White people love playing “divide and rule”. We should stop playing their game”, there was shock and anger as her remark struck a lot of people as racist.
Labour leader, Ed Miliband, ordered her to apologise, and she was lucky enough to keep her job. The MP claimed that her remark was taken out of context, and the character limitations meant that she couldn’t fully explain her meaning.
This is precisely why Twitter is not a medium that our politicians should be using to voice their opinions because, like Abbott, with the click of a button they could post something they will instantly regret, their 26,000 followers having access to it.
What Abbott posted was completely tactless and made her seem ignorant and careless despite the fact that she was writing in response to a tweet about ignorance towards black people. It is not something to be expected by someone in her position.
One thoughtless, poorly-worded tweet offended a lot of people. I can’t help but think that it was overlooked and that, had she made similar comments about black people, especially with the background of Stephen Lawrence enquiries in the news at the time, she would have been given more than just a slap on the wrist.
