London riots raise the question: how to find reliable tweets?

Following two nights of rioting and looting in London, The Next Web raises a question for Twitter-monitoring news junkies: amid the cacophony, whom do you trust?

The trouble is, responsible tweets from eyewitnesses are mixed up with excitable yawps from guys who’ve been texted a rumor from their mates or pub-goers who think a loud noise down the block might signify a cop car getting overturned.

TV—whose reporters are limited by the physics of moving cameras and crews about through an old-fashioned realm known as time and space—can’t provide the everywhere-at-once immediacy of this crazy new medium. By the time a reporter is jabbering live from a smoky street corner, the excitement may have moved on.

“The ‘flat’ nature of Twitter means that all users have equal importance,” TNW says. “While that may be a blessing in most cases, when it comes to assessing trustworthiness, of someone you’ve never heard of before, it can be a problem.”