The Voices of @Park51
BY Nancy Scola | Wednesday, August 18 2010
@Park51, the Twitter account of the planned Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan that's been all over the news, has, as Ben Smith noted yesterday been engaging in some particularly colorful tweeting -- mixing it with critics, retweeting provocative tweets by others, and debating the finer points of anime culture, as when it responded to objections over what seems to have been its Kalashnikitty avatar (as in, Hello Kitty holding a AK-47) with this note to a fellow tweeter: "God you're dense, that's gamer / anime / teen / Millenial culture. It's HELLO KITTY!"
But, as Maggie Haberman has picked up on, a ear tuned in to online discussions seems to work both ways. Shortly after Ben's post, @Park51 tweeted out notice that things were going to change. "Update," reads one tweet. "We are in the process of introducing a new team and are issuing apologies for any prior tweets that may have caused offense."
In another tweet, one of voices on the project's tweet feed explains that they'll be "replacing one of the interns on the park51 account." More from Ben here and Maggie here.