Tracking conversations and trends online has become something of a craft since social media took off, and it's a powerful way to pick up on breaking news and what has captured the public imagination. Why, one Susan Boyle was the most common term on Twitter for more than a week - before being beaten down by swine flu.

There's a swathe of social media "monitoring" tools being pushed by rather annoying marketing firms obsessed with tracking "buzz" about a brand or product.

For a web-savvy news organisation, top trending terms on sites like Twitter and Google's search trends can dictate the news agenda too - watch what people want to read about, and do quick turnaround news stories to meet that demand.

But this week, it's all about swine flu. "Swine flu symptoms" is the most searched-for term on the Guardian site today, while Swine Flu, #swineflu and Mexico are the most common terms on Twitter, where the subject accounted for 2% of all messages yesterday, according to Nielsen.

While that reflects public interest and the news agenda, it also highlights how many of us turn to the web as our first source of information. The web is famously treacherous as a self-diagnosis tool; a perfect example of how a little information can be dangerous; some Twitter users have been spreading message about not eating pork (it's not possible to catch swine flu from eating infected meat).

Evgeny Morozon on Foreign Policy is rather po-faced about what he calls "Twitter's role in facilitating an unnecessary global panic". As ever, Twitter is reflecting real-world behaviour and not driving it. He reels off eight irresponsible tweets but takes them all without context; if anyone you followed had posted any of these, wouldn't you have taken them to task?

"If my reading list on Twitter was only restricted to the individuals who had produced the posts above, by now I would be extremely scared and probably feeling a great urge to post a scary Twitter update myself," he writes. That's a very big "if" though - most of us don't follow a whole group of idiots - and are also capable of recognising a joke when we see one.

"In moments like this, one is tempted to lament the death of broadcasting, for it seems that the information from expert sources – government, doctors, and the like – should probably be prioritised over everything else and have a higher chance of being seen that the information from the rest of one's Twitter-feed, full of speculation, misinformation, and gossip."

随着社会媒体的飞速发展,在网络上跟踪会话和趋势已经演变一种工艺,这是一种解构和重建重大新闻的强有力方式并吸引公众的想象力。你看,苏珊波伊尔(《英伦有才人》选秀中以一曲《悲惨世界》中《我曾有梦》而一鸣惊人的47岁英国平民大妈)在Twitter网(即时信息的一个变种,允许用户将自己的最新动态和想法以短信息的形式发送给手机和个性化网站群,而不仅仅是发送给个人。)上荣登榜首一个多星期,然而猪流感一来,她的席位就立刻被打退了。

作为娴熟网络的新闻机构,Twitter网站或者谷歌搜索趋势能够指引新闻条目--它们能知道人们想要看什么新闻,并且迅速转身作新闻故事,以满足人们的这一需求。

但是这一周,所有网络新闻千篇一律地是关于“猪流感”。“猪流感症状“是今天卫报网站上被搜索最多的条目,而”猪流感“,“猪流感和墨西哥“是Twitter上最常出现的状态,根据尼尔森数据显示这些信息状态占了昨天所有信的百分之二。

虽然这反映了公众的兴趣和新闻机构,同时也显示出了如今我们很多人将网络作为第一手信息的来源。网络是臭名昭著的死我诊断工具,是证明不完全的信息可能会很危险。一些Twitter使用者已经开始散步诸如不能吃猪肉的消息。(其实通过吃猪肉感染猪流感根本是不可能的)

咨询专家莫诺佐夫(Evgeny Morozov)在《外交政策》(ForeignPolicy)上表示,Twitter可能在这次来势汹汹的猪流感疫情中加快散播负面消息,全球有可能因此而陷入不必要的恐慌。 和以往一样,Twitter只是反映了现实世界的行为而不是在驱使现实世界。 他一口气说出了八个极不负责的Twitter上的留言,如果你twitter上的好友发出了这样的言论,你难道会去指责他们吗?

莫诺佐夫写到,“如果我twitter的状态阅读清单上只有这些人张贴出来的状态,我现在一定是恐慌至极难以自拔,而且很有可能自己会去更新一个吓人的Twitter信息,” 尽管这只是一个的“可能”,因为我们不可能只会跟着去看一群傻瓜的状态,但却能让我们看到一个笑话调侃时能认出它来。

莫诺佐夫还说道“在这样的时候,人们会被吸引区悲叹广播宣传的实质上的死亡,因为这些信息看起来是来源于专家--政府,医生等,比起那些在只是待在Twitter上,被猜测、误导和留言充斥的人们,他们应该能考虑到更多并有更多的机会能看到事实。”