I posted the thought above on Twitter a couple nights ago.
Rereading it, I feel I need to expand upon my idea, because there are a couple motivators for the tweet. First, the tweet was not worded very well. It comes off as saying that people on Twitter are not as good as those not on Twitter. This wasn’t my intention. I think there are really good people both on and off Twitter. The idea is more about myself and evaluating whether or not I’d be a better infosec person if I were to stay off Twitter.
A majority of the people I work with on the security team are not on Twitter. All of them are really good at what they do. I know there are more of those types of people, because I’ve worked with others who are really good at what they do. Twitter is a very small subset of the people within the infosec field. I think it’s important that what is said and done on Twitter doesn’t necessarily reflect on the entire industry. I was also watching a YouTube video at the time of a buddy of mine who has a Twitter account, but doesn’t tweet a lot. He’s really smart and is doing some pretty amazing things in the field. I’ve wondered if I need to be spending more time being productive and less time on Twitter.
Twitter being just a small part of Twitter is also why I was a bit disappointed to hear that this year is DerbyCon’s last. I like to go to DerbyCon. I have a good time and I catch up with friends and make new ones. There’s a lot of positives to the conference. Unfortunately, there is also some drama, which gets amplified by Twitter. It’s draining on the conference organizers. I get it and I don’t have any ill feelings towards their decision. It’s their conference.
What I think it highlights to me is that sometimes we need to step out of our own little bubble and look around. Twitter, and social media, is our own little world. We create it and curate it to our beliefs and preferences. It can certainly be a useful tool for information, but it can also create our own bubble that consumes and drowns us.
Things that get our attention the most are on social media are controversial. It’s frustrating and depressing. I take solace in the fact that there’s a larger world with the those things but also a lot more good.
This blog post first appear on Exploring Information Security