Social networking has certainly blurred up a lot of lines on the internet.

Technically, the internet is media. But since everyone and anyone can publish information on the internet, control of content is not as well sanctioned as what we will find on TV or on printed material. Back then, when people had personal opinions, jokes, rumors and hearsay, they were all free to post it on their personal websites, blogs, forums and bulletin boards.

With the advent of social networking sites, people were able to string one personal update after another. Now, the micro blogging tool Twitter has shown how powerful hearsay on the internet can be.

Despite Twitter being a place of personal accounts, many people cannot help but take Tweets for canonical truth. Defining news updates from jokes is something that some people are not able to do properly, and when you have over a thousand followers, it only takes a handful few of those to misunderstand your Tweet before things get ugly.

Take the case of Aude Baron, a well noted online French Journalist. While users of the internet lose all markings such as military rank, press badges, doctorates and more in the cloak of anonymity, there are those who, intentionally or not, still retain their real life identity online. Baron has over a thousand followers who follow her Tweets –so when she jokingly retweeted a comment about the French President and his wife, many took the news to heart.

Some news blog sites even took the information to heart. In a matter of hours, rumors turned into assumed fact and President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife found themselves the target of a very ugly rumor that has reached even the tabloids.

Get to know more about how one single Twitter “joke” has caused uproar for the French media at the Times Online UK.

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