Review of Jimmy Wales's Twitter

Jimmy Wales is a person who’s creation many depend on daily, but do not realize. For those who are not familiar, you may recognize him as this man in this banner. Wales is the founder of Wikipedia and has been prominently featured on his site for the past few months asking for donations. Wales also has a twitter account, which will be the subject of this post. Jimmy Wales’s account, appears to be a combination of personal tweets and tweets supporting his political beliefs in a ratio of about 1:1. For example, he has tweets about his delayed flight to Atlanta, but also has tweets concerning piracy, SOPA and PIPA, and the United States government. It can be assumed from his tweets that he is fairly liberal. Wales is one of the leaders against SOPA and it shows through a large fraction of his tweets against it, as well as the “With Your Help, We Can Defeat SOPA” statement in his “about me” section.

Wales’s twitter is interesting in that it is used for both for his personal life and business. Usually, business accounts, such as that of prominent scientist Richard Dawkins offer little original material, often linking to other sites. In comparison, personal accounts, such as that of Steven Colbert, offer original material, thoughts, and nonsensical tweets. Because Wales’s account does both, it is more personal that a business style account because it humanizes him, but also provides informative content. The personal nature of the account makes Jimmy more relatable, which could net him more flowers, helping to get his message out. In this sense, Wales’s twitter account is effective by attracting users to it.

However, the content of the posts seem to lack substance, although this is a fault of twitter’s character limitation more than that of the poster. I found the most informative posts to be those that link outward to other sites. Because the most interesting ideas are usually complex and nuanced, it can be difficult if not impossible to express them in 130 words or less. Although for entertainers such as Steven Colbert, 130 characters may be a perfect amount to deliver that punchline, it is not enough for complex arguments. In fact, the majority of his more serious posts, such as “5% think Congress doing a good job but re-election rates will remain high: evidence of a corrupt system?” are linked to full articles on other sites.

Wales attempts to bring up a number of political topics he finds important. The majority of them point to SOPA and the government’s unwavering support of it. He tweets updates on the results of his Wikipedia SOPA blackout, as well as commentary on American congressmen’s lack of support for their constituency. Although it is clear that Wales is against the current political system and against Internet censorship, it is not exactly evident why. Looking through his feed, he does not specifically mention why he is against the corrupt system or even why the system is corrupt. Again, I feel that this is not the fault of the author, but the nature of twitter. Attempting to convey these types of ideas would be confusing oversimplified and would not do the idea justice. Because of this, should serious discussion even be conducted on twitter? If this is the case, can any social media be used as a medium for serious discussion?