To follow or not to follow?

"That is the question..."

I love twitter. I love following everyone i've come in contact with, either in person or on the internet.

But, what if there are just some people that shouldn't follow you? People that you don't know how they're going to understand your tweets.

As I was browsing my Tweetie tonight, I noticed that my PR writing professor posted a tweet that basically asked PR professors (through the trending topic feature) if a student's tweets contradict her class excuse, should she call the student out on it. Immediately (because I'm paranoid), I assume she's talking about me.

Let's be clear: I've missed class twice this semester and I've been VERY up front about my reasons. The first time, I missed class because of a terrible migraine. Totally legit. The second time, I completely overslept. Which I explained in an e-mail and I complained about via Twitter. I've never even tried to lie about missing class. It's dumb. You WILL get caught. Especially when your teacher follows you on twitter.

As with my facebook post, now I'll be scared to tweet what I really want to tweet. What if someone that I didn't know was on twitter saw me complain about them (without using his or her name, of course). What if my slacker room mate saw all the frustration about her that i've let out on twitter?

I don't like being censored by anyone, including myself. Social media is a powerful tool, and I suppose it can sometimes be used as a watchdog. Should it? Since when did listening to someone's unique opinion/view of the world in 140 characters become social media monitoring?

I'm not saying that's what my teacher is doing. She's actually really cool. She didn't seem to be angry at me at all for oversleeping, and I'm still not sure she was even talking about me. It just made me think: Who else is watching me (or you, even) on twitter to make sure I'm not making a mistake?

Does your employer follow you? Are you following someone just to see if they'll slip up or to make fun of what they say? Do you only follow some people because you hope they'll follow you? Why do you really follow all those people on your twitter? Think about it.