Blogging Tips

Don’t Take Advantage of Celebrity Deaths on Twitter

Written by Kristen Nicole from Kristen Nicole

brittwitt Sadly, several celebrities have died in the past week. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Billy Mayes. Social media has nearly taken the Internet down, breaking news, sharing personal stories and spreading their own thoughts and feelings regarding these tragedies. So why would someone take advantage of the morbid trend by hacking into a celebrity Twitter account and reporting that they too have passed away?

In light of the untimely deaths of so many celebrities in such a short period of time, it’s just creepy and unnecessary for a hacker to break into Brittney Spears’ Twitter account and spread rumors that she is dead. The hacker even went so far as to us the pop singer’s twitpic account for effect. While Spears has since updated her Twitter account and Twitter itself says it’s working on the particular vulnerability that allowed the twitpic hack, one has to wonder at the thought process behind such a hack.

I know the regular celebrity death rumors get spread around the Internet every so often. Earlier this year there was talk of teenage icon Miley Cirus turning up dead. But this most recent hack into Spears’ account is especially insensitive and a Twitter user should never stoop so low for driving traffic, pulling a publicity stunt or merely gaining attention. The hack diminishes the purpose and value of a communication tool such as Twitter, along with the community composition that goes along with the microblogging platform.

With this being said, I urge you to remember what Twitter is made for and how it’s best used. There are plenty of ways to generate traffic and attention on Twitter without completely misusing the Twitter system and taking advantage of its community. From hashtags to joining in n the discussion of the hack itself, you can maintain a healthy web presence and still build your brand using social media tools.

Written by Kristen Nicole from Kristen Nicole
Posted on June 29th, 2009 and filed under Social Media
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3 Responses to “Don’t Take Advantage of Celebrity Deaths on Twitter”

Author comments are in a darker gray color for you to easily identify the posts author in the comments

Color Printing says:

June 30, 2009 at 1:26 am

I hope it’s not Spear’s camp themselves who’s behind the tweet. I’m not saying that they are, but we should remember that some people take publicity too far. The hacker really should be ashamed of himself. It’s never a funny joke to tell everyone that a person is dead.
Richael | Domain Marvelous says:

June 30, 2009 at 11:47 pm

Well, to be honest, I believed this stuff when I read it. Then it became hilarious. However, ethically speaking, this is wrong. Twitter got to patch up its far too many vulnerabilities and exploit loopholes.
Guest says:

July 1, 2009 at 5:35 am

Ethics is an important part for every writer who blogs or writes on the net. Doing such stuff may give you publicity but its a cheap stunt afterall