Twitter and Diffusion of Innovation

Twitter is one of the most used social media platforms up to date. Twitter is used by the common citizen, celebrities, politicians, and companies all over the world. Twitter is most commonly used to spread news, publicly stating our opinion, and commenting on other people's tweets. Twitter blew up when marketing companies realized that social media was an up and coming way to market their brand. It was the easiest way to reach people and get them to notice your product. One retweet from the right person and hundreds of thousands of people will see the tweet. 

Twitter then became one of the best ways to spread the news about your product or program. While this can be a good thing, there is also a negative side when it comes to a less professional account. You can tweet pretty much anything you want, without consequences, unless the wrong person were to see it. Next thing you know, thousands are seeing something that they could take out of context and get offended and use against you to ruin your reputation and your company's reputation.

It's great that twitter is used as a resource to state your opinion, but it's important to remember words can be twisted and interpreted wrong. It's a great way to feel personally connected to people, but not everyone is actually what they seem to on the internet. Specially twitter. 

https://www.digitalorganics.com.au/what-makes-twitter-so-successful/

The Most Important Value of Free Expression

While all the values listed in the "Eight Values of Free Expression" are important when it comes to our first amendment right as American citizens, I can't help but think that there is one value that's more important than the other. The marketplace of ideas value, in my opinion, is the basis of the other values, and our freedom of speech as citizens. This value focuses on the fact that the truth will always prevail, when in the right.

Without the freedom to speak our truth, we wouldn't have not only individual identities, but no identity in our country, which prides itself on being "The Land of the Free”. The article called Marketplace of Ideas explains that “marketplace of ideas refers to the belief that the test of the truth or acceptance of ideas depends on their competition with one another and not on the opinion of a censor, whether one provided by the government or by some other authority” (Marketplace of Ideas, MTSU.edu). This explains that people have the chance to prove their truths to be correct, giving those the opportunity to express their truths. This allows not only good discussion, but the want and need for people to express their beliefs. 

The marketplace of ideas is beneficial to all the other values listed that make up our freedom of speech and expression. This can relate to participation in self government, because without the marketplace of ideas politicians and campaigns would not be able to speak their truths and base their marketing on any core beliefs. This allows them to come up with their own ideas and speak their opinions, drawing more attention and participation from citizens. In accordance to Stable change, people being able to speak their frustrations and issues out results in less violence and more targeted/beneficial discussion.

By being able to speak their truths, citizens are able to create their own identity. This aligns with the value of individual self-fulfillment. The marketplace of ideas also plays a big role when it comes to the value of checks on governmental power. Without expressing our truths on what we believe the government is lacking, there would be no accountability or change. Promoting tolerance is affected by the marketplace of ideas, because it helps us recognize hate speech and speak out against it. It promotes innovation by letting us compete and speak out on our truths and ideas that we feel would benefit society. Finally, it enables us to protect dissent, which allows us to not only disagree against the government, but speak out on what we feel they can do better.

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/999/marketplace-of-ideas