Twitter Will Let Newsrooms Watermark Employees’ Profiles

Twitter is testing a new feature that will allow newsrooms to add small watermarks on their employee’s profiles, according to an article by the Nieman Journalism Lab. Several employees of the Daily Mirror have already seen miniature icons appear next to their names and verification status. This newest move by Elon Musk’s much-transformed platform raised the eyebrows of many journalists, who believe that the move will be “will be more trouble than it’s worth for many news organizations.”

Two-thirds of local news and broadcast organizations lay claim to their staffer’s accounts, according to a 2017 study. Journalists have even been sued for custody of their personal social media accounts, such as when the Roanoke Times sued its former sports reporter when he left the publication. Their lawsuit argued that the reporter “has essentially taken BH Media’s curated customer list (or at worst [a] list of potential targets) to use for direct marketing on behalf of a direct competitor.” It alleged nearly $150,000 in damages to the paper and its customer base. It also refused to take its own action to help rebuild, alleging that “any attempt at recreation would likely never result in the same configuration of followers.”

“A lot of journalists have Twitter accounts before they came to a company,” said Kelly McBride, a senior vice president at the Poynter Institute and leading media ethicist. “[Twitter accounts are] sort of similar to Rolodex, which in most cases a reporter did own [before working for the company].” This move could create a similar long line of legal battles for journalists who may find themselves forced to give up their entire social media presence if they change jobs or change publications.

“It’s hard enough to be a journalist these days. In the name of good journalism, I think journalists should own their own brand. It brings value to them as individuals,” McBride said. “There are so many journalists who are losing their jobs because the economy in journalism is so bad. It is an asset they can take with them that makes them more employable. I’m not sure it’s an asset the company deserves to keep.”

Newsrooms want custody of their employees’ accounts because of the intellectual property generated by the employee for the sake of the newsroom. The optics of employee behavior is also important to newsrooms: since 2017, the New York Times has had a long list of guidelines and ethics they expect their reporters to follow on social media: but the Times falls short of claiming complete ownership. 

Overall, antennae are raised over the possible consequences of Twitter allowing newsrooms to lay visual claim to their employees. 

“My suspicion (just a suspicion at this point),” wrote Joshua Benton for NiemanLab, “is that this will be more trouble than it’s worth for many news organizations — even if it makes sense for other industries. Putting that little logo on every tweet will, rightly or wrongly, make every staffer seem like an official spokesperson for the organization. For the limited potential benefits — a little extra Twitter traffic? the branding potential of a 16-pixel square? — it’ll probably be a pass for most.” 

The full consequences of this new move remain to be seen.