10 golden rules of twitter

It seems that not a week goes by that some tvitteryanin not grabbed the hands of law enforcement agencies. If you do not want to be one of them, but want to continue correspondence with messages of 140 characters, I present to you my 10 Golden Rules :

1. Twitter posting is a post. To send a message means to publish it, to make it publicly available. So do not write anything that you will not be happy to see in the news feed next to your photo.
2. It seems to you that, by law, you do not slander. Well yes. And none of your friends either. This week, the number of people who assured me on Twitter that repeating slander is not slander (this is not so), or when you do not directly say that X is guilty in Y, but simply hinting at it, then it does not count (considered !)
3. If you are an abstract nobody who follows nobody, but who wants to say something rude like the person personally, do not insert a popular hashtag into the text. On your ill-fated head you will cause the wrath of thousands of strangers.
4. Some people like to annoy strangers. These are called trolls. If you hold back, reading the constant rude remarks on your account and on your dearly cherished views, simply block the stranger. And it will disappear, as if by magic.
5. You have been hurt. In heart. Someone questioned your talent or your sincerity. You want to surf the net. No need: how the vultures flock to those who like to see you in frustrated feelings. Smile, put a smiley.
6. You have composed a sharp response to an insult, full of caustic sexual or gross images, rubbing away the twitter enemy, who, despite my advice, managed to get you? Re-read, admire, repeat to yourself all 140 biting letters. And then, by God I pray, wipe off .
7. Do not tweet, lounging about. It seems to you that the thought is clever, ridiculous, you giggle and drool from your adorable wording. In fact, you open the gates of hell. The morning will come, clear and sobering.
8. Never meet with a funny casual acquaintance from Twitter, even if you exchanged ff-s <FollowFriday> (every Friday offered your followers to follow those you follow yourself - transl.) Months. Only after a police check. I learned it well after an unpleasant incident.
9. Pick yourself a cool avatar (picture) on Twitter. Do not leave by default the famous egg, it is also the scene of cutting the eye from the film " Andalusian Dog " ('Un Chien Andalou') . For the common good.
10. 10. Finally, the golden rule is the rule of rules. Never, never write anything about anyone that you could not say in person. Surely there are reasons for which you would not say it personally. If you can be beaten or sued, why write about it?

@DAaronovitch (author - columnist for the British newspaper The Times - approx. Transl.)