The etiquette of ‘following’ on Twitter

I just heard an interesting discussion on Marketplace (public radio) where Steven Dubner, the guy that runs the Freakonomics blog, was defending their policy of not following anyone on Twitter — even though hundreds of thousands follow them. They claim Twitter isn’t really “social media” in the sense that Facebook is, and that obligatory follow reciprocity is just disingenuous. Says Dubner, “Lady Gaga and President Obama for instance — they each follow hundreds of thousands of people. But I mean, come on, really — do those people really think that Lady Gaga and President Obama are reading their tweets?”

What do you think?