Spam? Black hat? Do you even use Twitter? I'd advise you to go conduct a Twitter search for any given trend, and return with an assessment of the value those re

Spam? Black hat? Do you even use Twitter? I'd advise you to go conduct a Twitter search for any given trend, and return with an assessment of the value those results carried. I'm wiling to bet that you'll find a good 99.9% of what you find to be 'spam.' What I did was no different than what you see on television when you hear 'the cure to weight loss is here!' It's tapping into the human psyche and appealing to a very irrational part of the human mind. Just like how Apple markets their products as 'these will make you look hip instantly!' Sure, you could argue that because it was swine flu, I was dealing with a more sensitive and morally weighty issue, but I'm sure more people die every year of obesity, etc. And to be fair, the name of my account, flushirts, and the shirt linked, shirts that said 'oinkment' or 'theraswineflu,' did provide some context to those tweets. You are more than justified in arguing that other things I did can be perceived as unethical. My use of Twitter, however, was not. I used it to directly communicate with those who were discussing a topic I happened to be catering to. And the 'Breaking:..' tweets were just a way to grab attention amidst a society in an irrational and unnecessary panic. That's how some marketing works. That's how Apple conducts its marketing, believe it or not, as subtle as it may be.