Since we don’t have enough trouble sorting legit tweets from fakes before they go viral, Lemme Tweet That For You — an older service that has, for some reason, picked up this week — now exists to further complicate the muddied waters of social media fact checking failure.
Fake tweets like those generated from Let Me Tweet That For You are pretty distinguishable from real ones simply by checking a timeline for the relevant Twitter user. But let’s face it, most Twitter users tend to retweet first and ask questions later.
(Which is, funnily enough, a total hassle for people like us who have to write about it later.)
Journalism think tank Poynter looked at Lemme Tweet That For You this week, noting too that journalists can (and will) check a timeline for a specifically suspicious tweet in particular. Of course, it’s always best practice to verify and ideally embed relevant tweets, which isn’t possible with the image-only service.
However, the site also notes that Lemme Tweet That For You could (and let’s face it) likely will create issues with tweet deletion accusations — we will add a particular risk in the social media reign of heavily politicized news and framed stories that run halfway around the blogosphere before the real story gets its Pumas on.
The site adds:
But what if it’s passed off as screenshot evidence of an allegedly deleted tweet? Much tougher to disprove. Proceed with caution.
As with most fakery services, people will largely catch on after the first few large scale hoaxes — which have, so far as we know, not been associated with Lemme Tweet That For You just yet.
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