How quickly do you retweet something from unknown source on Twitter?

How old is Twitter? I don't think it's much more than three years old itself.

 

Got my own answer. It's been around since July 2006, a little over five years old.

 

My point is that I don't think it's a representative sample of Twitter behavior. That being said, the laziness you speak of has become a huge problem.

 

Really? If you're trying to establish yourself as a credible source of information and you re-tweet without first making an effort to determine whether the tweet is right or wrong, why should anyone follow you? Why not follow the original rumor dispenser?

 

More on this, from a news/TV angle on people re-Tweeting a false Piers Morgan's report on his suspension from CNN:
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/romenesko/140992/felix-salmon-not-a-journalistic-sin-to-pass-along-rumors-in-the-new-newsroom-called-twitter/

 

Like I said, there's a difference between reporting that somebody with a track record of reliability has said something and actually confirming it. In this climate, while you're personally trying to confirm the info, somebody else will have already done so and you'll have taken another step towards irrelevance. I'm not saying it's right, but it's the way the biz works now.

 

I'm with Screwball on this one. Retweets are viewed as validation.

Also, does anyone else wonder about the person who spreads all these false rumors to a source he knows is just going to spread them to hundreds of followers who may just be innocent fans who just want to know who their team picked up? No one read this and thought that?

 

How about never?
Why would I endorse someone's reporting whom I don't know?

 

Yeah, it does.
Your re-tweet is an endorsement that you believe that news is worthy of passing along.

 

I think there's an implied "Hey, this guy said this" in retweeting something, as opposed to "Hey, this happened."

 

Nope. There's an implied: I trust this person, who said this.
It's lazy and irresponsible to suggest otherwise.

 

I would never RT something that was supposedly news or a fact from someone I didn't know. I don't understand why you would.

Of course, i pretty much only follow known media people, so I don't see anything unless it came from one of them.