I have had a Twitter account for over a year, but I have just begun regular tweeting in the last couple of months so that I can help spread the word about childhood cancer and also to receive regular updates from various cancer information sources. One of the strategies that the founder of the Oprah Please Do A Show on Childhood Cancer uses to grow the page is tweeting. She tweets to different celebrities– people who have huge Twitter followings– and asks them to retweet about “Liking” the page. Her Twitter name is @PiedPiperinKC, and when she gets someone to retweet, all of the rest of us “Followers” retweet the tweet. Got all that????
Okay, so here comes little @1ballerina (me!) trying to help the cause. I retweet everything that comes along, but I start to think, “Hey, I could actually tweet some of my own if I just copy @PiedPiperinKC’s tweets and start sending them off to other people she hasn’t sent to. I’m feeling really good about sending off tweets to help raise awareness for childhood cancer– working to save lives– when poor little @1ballerina gets a swift CYBERSWAT! I received a return tweet from an obviously disturbed recipient. Warren Whitlock, who has an enormous Twitter following, told me not to send him “Spam” and then told me he would have to “report me.” I followed with a “Is this Spam?” tweet and he politely replied with the definition. I had no idea that I could get in trouble and have people “Report me” on Twitter! How many tweets can I send before I cross over the line to SPAM? If I change up the wording just a bit in each one, does that disqualify my word-shuffled tweets from being classified as SPAM?
What the heck happens to poor little @1ballerina if I do get “reported”??????????????
Who ARE the Twitter Police?
I hope they don’t catch me… I am going to have to type my childhood cancer awareness tweets in the dark of night… and hope they don’t GET me.
May I remind all of you one more time why I am willing to risk the Twitter Police?
http://www.kmbc.com/r-video/25662362/detail.html
Sometimes we have to ruffle a few feathers on our way to saving children’s lives. I am very sorry Mr. Whitlock for ruffling yours… @1ballerina really didn’t mean to.
Grace: A Child's Intimate Journey Through Cancer and Recovery
Melinda Marchiano 
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