Twiter is a public space, says Gawker, and conversations you have in public spaces are public. You want private? Take it to email, or text, or phone.
Seems legit. But apply this rule to the offline world, and it falls apart pretty quickly. Don’t want me butting into the conversation you’re having in a diner? Take it to a hotel. Don’t want me snarking on that phone call about your cancer diagnosis on Twitter? Talk quieter. Don’t want me putting your reaction to the car accident that killed your kid on YouTube? Grieve when you get home.
The reality is that the boundary between private acts and public acts is blurry, and always has been. People do private stuff in public all the time, and while we may in some cases have a legal right to violate the privacy of those moments, mostly we don’t, because it’s understood that we shouldn’t. It’s understood that it’s a jerky thing to do.
Is Twitter different? Maybe. In some ways it is. Certainly it’s generally simpler to snoop on people’s private conversations on Twitter than it is in meatspace — simpler not just because it’s easy to do, but also because it’s easy to do without getting caught. Tweets aren’t more public than a loud conversation on