Twitter 140 conference 1 – Stephen Fry

Twitter hero Stephen Fry gave a rousing speech about how Twitter is a human space for humans.

9.35 Twitter is: by humans, about human stuff. connected by a gossamer network.

9.40 Revolution of the internet is similar to the invention of the printing press.

9.42 On Journalists. “there was no class of person more contemptuous of Twitter than the newspaper commentator.” They wrote that they didn’t care what we all ate for breakfast.
And why should they care? well don’t fucking write about it if you don’t care you idiot.

9.45 A number of things in twitter really strike to the heart of what the deadwood press is about.

1st – the celebrity business… previously a pact with devil: between PR and the journalists. can speak to millions just by typing into
into your twitter feed.

2nd – useful a twitter feed is for lazy journalism, just write what a celeb is wearing.

Newspapers actually call it a “feed” not a “stream”.

9.46 Twitter Tipping Points this year:
– Guardian gag, not being allowed to report the name of an MP who had tabled a question. Online there were all the resources needed to find the info that had been restricted in the printed press.
Considered a triumph for Twitter and free speech.

– The Jan Moir article. A “malevolently phrased” article. Again, her name was trending… and Fry retweeted what was already there. However, it became a fight again, with Stephen Fry gets the credit/blame for big stories like this.

Only someone who didn’t understand Twitter would write that.

9.50 It’s such a pity that people don’t understand Twitter – no great conceptual leaps required – you simply need to participate in it. And be are aware of the pulse of an average Tweet day.
It’s a mistake that people make an enemy of it, it’s just made up of lots of different people.

9.52In that way it’s like a city. I always said that about the internet.
The great cities of the world have built up organically in diffferent ways. It has its museums and galleries and churches and businesses and shops, slums and red-light district.

9.53 You don’t allow IBM or Microsoft to come in and redesign the city. Like you wouldn’t allow the gas or water companies to redesign a real city.

Sometimes you think with the crime, the noise you don’t want to live there any more.
but thank god – what energy, what excitement we get from Twitter.

9.57 But remember these things are human shaped – not business shaped, not corporate-shaped.

Don’t deny the internet the joy of you humanity and your laughter.
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No Stephen we won’t…