On twitter, you make a post and no one sees it. You add a hashtag, and anyone can find that post by searching for it. You type in “I love unicorns! #myNYPD” and it’ll be included when someone searches for that trending twitter thread.
The problem is that no one owns that hashtag. The NYPD started it, but anyone can post anything under it and they have no control. Which is how you get pics of police abuse along sides of cops giving teddy bears to kids. It’s all a question of volume.
Five to six years from now, if Twitter survives, there should be more editing power available to the original poster. That’s what I would expect. If Twitter has not changed or provided any ‘fine tuning’ controls to the poster, a rival company may come along with these features, making Twitter into the MySpace Ghost Town of tomorrow. Rupert Murdoch made the mistake of buying MySpace after interest in it had peaked. He spent over $580. million, only to sell it for $35. million. Mistake were made in this new form of media.