Saturday, August 2, 2014

When Is a Retweet Just a Retweet?

Updated (6/19/2015)

Last year, the Washington Post asked and answered the following question:

“Do you have ‘RT ≠ endorsement’ in your Twitter bio? Maybe it’s time to take that out.”

Patrick LaForge, who coined the phrase, explains:

“A blanket phrase in my profile is not going to indemnify me. If I think a retweet is likely to confuse people about my viewpoint, or if there is some doubt about the accuracy of the original tweet, I add attribution, skepticism or other context. Or I skip it.”

Here are a few alternatives:

User
Disclaimer
RTs = endorsements because thats what RTs are.
Usual caveats about my own opinions apply.
Thoughts are my own, but, duh.
Julia Holmes Bailey
I RT what catches my eye. My views are my own.
Henri Makembe
Usual disclaimers apply.
Hayley Tsukayama
RTs != endorsements and, frankly, are sometimes accidental.
Brad Stone
Retweets are usually mistaken clicks.
Gene Weingarten
My tweets represent only the views of the Post. Personally, I disavow them.
Gabe Rivera
Retweets are endorphins.
Dylan Matthews
Retweets are proposals of marriage.
Tucker Carlson
Retweets are emphatic endorsements.
Dan Gilmor
Retweets mean I thought you should see this; usually that’s an endorsement, sometimes not.
Anthony Flores
Fuck it: RTs are endorsements.
Jennifer Steinhauer
RTs concerning anchovies are probably endorsements.
Joel Johnson
Tweets do not yet reflect the opinions of my employers.
Sheryl Stolberg
RT = read this.
Andrew Bleeker
RTs are someone else’s.
Nick Confessore
Retweets = death threats.

Concludes Gawker: “If your company makes you add this disclaimer, tell the higher-ups they are stupid for doing so. If you add this disclaimer yourself just because you want to, you are bad at the Internet.”