Twitter would be as vulnerable if not moreso than “real life” networks to infiltrators or informants. In the even that this were to happen, law enforcement agencies would have access to the same information that those in the twitter cell would, which would likely allow them to plan in advance for any disturbance or shut it down quickly once it started. Obviously that’s just me speculating though.

-Karim

http://regispromotion.com

Although, not directly relevant to this post (but keeping in sync with the rest of the blog), I would like to point out this article published in the Mindtree Consulting Inc Knowledge Center.

http://www.cioupdate.com/reports/article.php/11050_3755056_1/Enterprise-20—Giving-the-Hype-a-Second-Thought.htm

This is another skeptic’s viewpoint on the Enterprise 2.0 phenomenon. However, I would like to point out that one can glean several snippets of important information (although, I am sure that the author wouldn’t want to look at it from this point of view)from this article as enumerated below.

1. Organizations need to understand that the Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 are different animals even though both may utilize similar underlying components and plumbing, the environments and the context in which they are implemented are very different.

2. The cultural readiness of an organization will go a long way in determining the success of Enterprise 2.0 initiative.

3. Be wary of basing your Enterprise 2.0 strategy on the basis of one or two experiments with Enterprise 2.0 in small teams.

4. Does the organization have the required critical mass to leverage the network effect?

Could we have an open blog discussion on these issues sometime if possible? Thanks.

Twitter differs from previous communication media in ways that have made it successful: simplicity, immediacy, and broadcast capability. I cannot think of another medium which would work as well as Twitter for AndrewÂ’s example of flashmobbing. The obvious countermeasure would be against the account or the service providing the instructions. If those were beyond reach, it sure seems that the open, truly publish/subscribe nature of Twitter would provide an incremental advantage over alternatives, such as an RSS feed. That would apply equally for any mob-leadership type of application, including the activists at the RNC or street protest in general. Where security is impossible due to threat of infiltration, Twitter may be the medium of choice for real-time broadcast.

For this very reason, it would be relatively easy for an agent to infiltrate such a Twitter group and thwart the flash mob.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_mob

1. once an activity is online it can be monitored more easily and with a more easily scalable process than if it is offline
2. all online activity runs to ground, behind every message there is an IP address which though often obscured does provide more detail than a repeated rumor. An online footprint of followers is a very attractive nugget of intelligence. These ground contacts can be added to a net that can incrementally close in on an operation
3. the anonymity afforded by Twitter allows for the activation of a disinformation fog of messages once online activity has been observed – taking your example “All women go to checkpoint q” – a program can easily be developed to blanket that same network with messages that instruct all women to go to checkpoints A-Z or to checkpoint T where they can be video-taped and identified
4. a series of fake flashmob instructions or a daily or even hourly request to flashmob can soon turn this mode of communication into static.