ReadWriteWeb

The Internet (or at least Twitter and MySpace) bade farewell to Trent Reznor and Stephanie Meyer respectively, if not respectfully, last week. Each of them blamed incessant harassment by trolls for their departures.

Some may roll their eyes and dismiss these complaints as thin-skinned... but it's hard to underestimate just how debilitating the deluge of abuse can be. While XKCD offered one ingenious solution to the problem, and others are suggesting an end to anonymity online, I'm inclined to agree with Sarah Perez, who suggests the only real answer, for now, is that celebrities who can't cope with the torrent of crap should staff up with a communications team to handle it for them.

In this morning's New York Times, there's an interesting article about the new trend of "ghost Twittering." If you don't know what that means, it's when someone, usually a celebrity, politician, or a "personal brand" of some sort, pays another person or other people to update their Twitter account on their behalf. This "ghost writer" of tweets thus becomes a "ghost Twitterer." While it may make sense for someone like U.S. President Barack Obama to farm out Twitter updates to staff (he has bigger tasks to focus on than tweets), when individual celebs and micro-celebs engage in this practice it seems a bit disingenuous. Is it really so hard to post 140 characters every now and then?