With the protests in Iran, we've finally seen that Twitter can actually be a useful tool. But at the same time, there are plenty of pitfalls to the site. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., demonstrated one of them on Wednesday, writing:
Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.
I hope never to write a book of advice on Twitter, but if I ever do, the first tip, dedicated to Hoekstra, will be: If you ever find yourself writing a tweet in which you essentially compare House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Ayatollah Khamenei, you should probably reconsider.
Update: Hoekstra's spokesman, Dave Yonkman, has offered a clarification of his boss' tweet. "Congressman Hoekstra did not compare the ongoing violence in Iran to when Democrats shut down the House chamber during the energy debate last summer," Yonkman told CNN. "The two situations do share the similarity of government leadership attempting to limit debate and deliberation, and the ability of new technologies to bypass their efforts and allow for direct communication. That’s the only point that he was trying to make."
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