Remember that one time Anthony Weiner tweeted pictures of his, um, Anthony Weiner?  

What about the recent strain of freakish Twitpics from Amanda Bynes?

Or how about when the Associated Press (@AP) sent this out to the Twitterverse: “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured.”

Just in case you haven’t heard: There weren’t any bombs in D.C., and our president is perfectly OK. AP’s Twitter account was hacked Monday, sending our technologically dependent nation into a tailspin. The Dow Jones dropped 143 points after the tweet was sent out.

One hundred and forty tiny characters can be a powerful, powerful force.   

Since its creation seven years ago, Twitter has exploded. Each day, there are over 200 million active users on the site, sending off approximately 400 million tweets every 24 hours. The company’s editorial director called the social network “a true global town square.” It is. Twitter welcomes people from every crevice of the Earth, and even further — 2009 marked the very first tweet from space.

That’s right, Twitter has gone to infinity and beyond.

Out of those 400 million daily tweets, there’s a lot of garbage, lies, libel and junk. This is part of the beauty of Twitter: You can say whatever you want. It’s the First Amendment on crack. Celebrities can lash out at the press (read: @AmandaBynes can threaten the Huffington Post to “choose a better photo or remove the story”). Politicians can create refined representations of themselves (read: They can hire people to write, groom and spell-check every single tweet). And the rest of us can express ourselves using our favorite slang words, emoticons and hashtags.

I’ve certainly contributed my fair share of irrelevant quips to the site. I joined Twitter when I was a junior in high school, and since then, I’ve written over 9,500 tweets — the earliest ones are highly embarrassing.

Twitter rolled out a new feature in December 2012, allowing users to take a little trip down memory lane. It’s a simple process: You go to settings, then the account tab, then you press the button that says “Request your archive.”

I downloaded my archive for the first time a few days ago, and oh, was it fascinating. One of my first tweets read: “there ain’t nothin’ like late night bacon! yeee haww!!!” And then, a few days later: “i am excited to wear my new pink robe! Actually it’s more of a pinky-red color but I love it nonetheless!!”

I like to think my tweets have matured since March 2009.

Those tweets might have been permissible for our high school years, but this is college — the game has changed. There is no longer any wiggle room for typos or bad grammar or robes. We’re applying for jobs and internships, and our Twitter account could make or break us. One foul tweet can destroy your credentials faster than you can say “Anthony Weiner.”

No matter what, there will always be junk on the Internet. Our only defense is to stop believing everything we read. There’s no fact-checker on Twitter — anyone can say anything, including @AP. The place is an open forum, and the entire world is invited.

Twitter is not the end all and be all. It doesn’t have the final say. But this social network does grant us a small dose of power. We’ve got to use it wisely, read with a grain of salt, and tweet responsibly.

Melanie is a sophomore in Media. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @mellystone.