Sunday New York Times columnist Frank Rich had a curmudgeonly column this week entitled “Facebook Politicians Are Not Your Friends” arguing that the Internet has failed to deliver more political transparency, and decrying politicians and groups that use social media to serve up a false front to the public. Then he picked on the punching-bag-du-jour of the analog class, Twitter:
The more recent miracle of Twitter theoretically encourages real-time interconnection between elected officials and the citizenry. But it too has been easily corrupted by politicians whose 140-character effusions are often ghost-written by hired 20-somethings, just like those produced for pop stars like 50 Cent and Britney Spears.
Or, Rich might have added, the 140-character effusions generated by unpaid bots working for 20th-century publishing giants like the New York Times. To wit, here’s Frank Rich’s most recent tweets:
October 13, 2010