proposed terms for twitter

Here’s a proposed set of Terms & Conditions, agreement to which should – in my most humble of opinions – be part of the Twitter signup process. Note that I haven’t phrased them in the popular ‘Ten Commandments’ format, because neither Christianity nor Judaism should come into this, innit?

Ten deliberately non-denominational rules:

1. Don’t tweet your silly bigotry please (obviously).
2. Don’t tweet things that are really really mundane.
3. Don’t try and sell me stuff, even if you’re doing so in a more subtle way than simply shouting “buy this”. Amazon = shop, Twitter = not shop.
4. If you are a business, I won’t be fooled by your seemingly unbiased regularly timed tweets; I know you’re only here to try and sell stuff (refer to rule 3 above).
5. Please don’t write a “sorry I haven’t tweeted” tweet unless:
         a.  you have an interesting/funny/tragic reason for not tweeting
         b.  err … that’s it really 
6. Follow Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) – it’s the law.
7.  If you happen to be Stephen Fry, make sure any sites you may mention are robust enough to handle a stampede of eager Fry-followers. I have no idea how you would do this, but luckily that’s not my problem.
8. Stop using text-speak and urban shorthand all the bloody time. I know you only get 140 characters to play with – that’s the sodding point.
9. Celebrities (mainly Russell Brand really) – stop using Twitter purely to self-publicise your blog, which happens to be on the same website (i.e. yours) that sells – say – your latest book/dvd/yodelling compilation/mud art etc etc. (see rule 10)
10. Eddie Izzard (@eddieizzard) – for the sake of your sanity,  please shout “for Christ’s sake, go to my website” to all those idiots who keep asking you where and when you’ll be playing on your latest tour. Answering questions from people who can’t be arsed to find out the answers themselves must be driving you berserk. (see rule 9)
11. Congratulations for breaking the rule 9 -10 loop. Right, where were we? Ah … that’s it … STOP USING MOBYPICTURE BECAUSE IT’S PANTS
12. Don’t make up naff names for different types of Twitter user, like “twits”, “twerps”, “twibbles”, “twinkies” etc., unless:
         a.  you’re Jonathon Ross (@wossy)
         b.  you’re describing someone as a “twat” 
13.  If you have more than 100,000 followers, your duty to be consistently interesting while not tweeting too much is tripled. Sorry, them’s the breaks.
14. Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) is each Twitter-users private ikon. Not only must you follow him, you have to do as he says as well.
15. If you’ve spotted a celebrity who’s not on Twitter, registering a new account using their name is unlikely to be funny any more (although at the start it was). Sorry, that boat has sailed.
16. Hashtags – not as useful as people think they are, especially when everyone uses a different tag for the same topic. Someone should come up with a proper directory of these things – that would be handy. (By the way, the proper hashtag for Manchester United-related tweets is #manutd – FACT).
17. Finally, it’s the compulsory list of Twitter rules rule; if you tweet to tell us that you’re:
         a.  watching the telly
         b.  eating your dinner
         c.  going to the toilet
    We will find a way to kill you. I promise. 
18. There are two pages of Twitter users whose names and/or profiles include the words “Adolf Hitler”. Many of them use an image of Hitler as their profile pic. Make a point of sending a direct message to each one of them telling them what a cock they are; doing so will make you happy – trust me

So there you go. Eighteen seems a perfectly good, if somewhat unorthodox, number of rules. Now please follow them, and please tell Twitter to make them compulsory. Many people will be happy if you do.