A Joke, a tweet and damage
On Feb 1st, 2012, the Tweetland Policy Department(TPD) updated the status of investigating a recent one-million-dollar gold violin stolen case. The cause of the stolen might relate to neighbor’s unintended tweet, the short message sharing with others in the digital age just as the news broadcasting in the radio age.
On Jan 4, 2012, a Tweetland resident reported their stolen of gold violin. The golden violin was the symbol of many grand masters of Tweetland Symphony in the last millennium. The owners of the violin have lived in a local community in the past 3 years. They wanted to protect this invaluable violin and kept their life in low profile to avoid the public attention until the stolen case was reported.
The investigation found that the parent showed the violin to their seven-year-old daughter in the recent Christmas night. Jim Wang is the first suspect. Jim is the victim’s neighbor. Jim’s daughter and the victim’s daughter are same age and attend the same school. While Jim drove both of them to the school in the morning of Jan 4, 2012, Jim made a joke to two second graders: “What bone dog does not bite?” “Trombone” Victim’s daughter exclaimed to answer, “Actually, we have a gold violin and trombone……”
According to the investigation, after the drop off, Jim tweeted his message at 8:10a.m. :” A-million-dollar violin is in my community.” He further described many details, such as the shape and weights. The message has been retwetted by one hundred friends in the first ten minutes; One thousand people received and further forwarded the message within first thirty minutes. Ten million users received and retwetted the message in the morning. In the digital word, relaying a message seems like traveling at light speed. Because the message included the location information, the theft might be able to find victim’s house and steal the violin.
Police continue to investigate this case. Tweetland Police department recommends that local citizen carefully share privacy information on the social media platform. Any misconduct might lead to unpredictable damage.
