Be upfront about who's writing tweets

I am not a physicist, but I am loosely familiar with some natural law of physics which holds that it is impossible for us to be in two places at the same time. Unless, of course, you're a subatomic particle, which I'm not. Or Schrodinger's cat, which I'm also not.

For the longest time now, I've assumed that other human beings who are also not subatomic particles nor physicist's imaginary cats also are unable to be in two places (or exist in two states of being) at one time. But the recent spate of televised debates among the Democratic Party's presidential hopefuls suggests otherwise.

On the evening of the most recent three-hour debate, several of the candidates tweeted out comments during the course of the evening, a feat seemingly impossible because they were standing on a stage at the exact moment one of their tweets got posted. Often, the tweets seemed pre-packaged to coincide with a good line or salient point the candidate managed to work into the debate.

While it may seem obvious to many that someone or a group of people on the candidate's campaign staff is tweeting on the candidate's behalf, it seems odd that candidates would want their followers to know when they are actually tweeting and when someone else is tweeting on their behalf. The same goes for candidates from other political parties.

It's just that because there were so many people on stage who were vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, the practice was in sharp display during the three-hour debate.

Is it wrong for a busy person to have someone else manage their social media? Of course not. But it seems a lost opportunity for any candidates or political officeholders to engage in honesty and transparency by making clear to followers whether they are actually writing and posting their own words. It would be the right thing to do.

There a few methods of practicing honest tweeting. One would be to include a sentence in a Twitter profile that essentially says, "I do not always write my own tweets."

But a better way for Democrats, Republications, Libertarians and those of any party to practice Twitter transparency is to borrow a practice similar to that used by Michelle and Barack Obama when the latter was in office.

On the morning of Jan. 12, 2012, in one of her first tweets, Michelle Obama wrote: "This account will be managed by campaign staff, with any tweets from the First Lady herself signed '-mo.'" The president used 'bo' to indicate which tweets were directly from him. It would have been simple for any of the Democratic candidates to have engaged in a similar practice so followers could distinguish why they and not a staffer wrote under their name.

After all, we all know that you can't be tweeting while you are engaged in a live debate, unless moderators have started allowing the practice. It's disingenuous to pretend that you are capable of doing so, unless you are a subatomic particle or a thought-experiment cat.

Few of the latter ever run for office. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. 

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 

(c) 2019 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.