My guess is traditional journalists may also be better trained in “how” to vet than most others and be more aware of the potential fallout. My thoughts weren’t intended to be a rip on mainstream media who also have substantial social media profiles, but, rather a question about the responsibility of everyone to spend more time vetting stories.

And, reality is, it probably goes beyond the potential for market manipulation to things like defamation. What if you retreat something that intentionally defames a non-public person, without ever checking to see if it was true…or even reading a post linked to in the original tweet? Does your inadvertent RT make you a party to that defamation? Dunno?

Tough questions all around and, honestly, right now, I have more questions than I have answers. But, they’re questions I think are worth exploring as we all work to develop the social media rules of the road and understand how they intersect with the laws of the land.

That being said, since there’s no real way to delete a tweet and no way to edit one, you should take a deep breath before you post a tweet, especially one about a sensitive topic.

A hoax perpetrated on Twitter is not much different than a hoax on any other medium.

But let me flip this on you: How many times have you blindly re-Tweeted someone without checking to see if the story was true? Nobody’s immune to this. During Hurricane Gustav, one of my reporters, James Janega, caught wind of a rumor that was spreading like wildfire via Twitter that folks without IDs — homeless people — weren’t being allowed to evacuate. James called some people and found out that the rumor wasn’t true. (Check about halfway down the page.) He used his instincts as a journalist to try to confirm something, and he correct a fact that was floating around.

If James let that go, his credibility as @GustavReporter and his credibility in the newsroom would’ve taken a hit. And he would’ve done his followers — and others following the Gustav happenings — a disservice.

You’re absolutely right. Journalists are trained to not only get the facts right, but to introduce error. On the social Web, however, if a mistake is made, I believe your best move is to:

1. Admit you made a mistake.
2. Correct the mistake.
3. Thank the person or people who pointed out the mistake.
4. Respond personally, if necessary.

I remember a story from NPR’s “On the Media” a couple of years ago about Wikipedia, and there was a stat along these lines: For every 1,000 facts introduced, the Britannica introduced three errors. For every 1,000 facts introduced on Wikipedia, there were only four. And the good thing is that the facts are changed quickly.

With Twitter, especially if you’re a news organization, you’ll get called out. But if you have a solid following, you’ll get corrected quickly. Plus, I trust my reporters and editors to double-check their facts and headlines so that we don’t mislead anyone.

What I think will temper this, will be a series of hoaxes that will turn Twitter into another place on the internet that must be taken as a grain of salt. In the beginning all social groups start out as Utopian ideals, but human intervention in the form of vandalism, propaganda and general misinformation will introduce cynicism to what is currently a fairly clean feed.

Believe half of what you see will apply to Twitter soon enough.

Josh is on point; the market will sort out credible from non-credible sources over time, and anyone who seeks to profit on information without confirming its validity will learn a valuable lesson over the long term. Isn’t this the future that William Gibson has been imagining for us?