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Tag: Social Media


Heckling the First Lady

Michelle Obama’s confrontation with a lesbian activist signals the beginning of a push to turn up the heat on the president by the LGBT community; Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s calling protesters “looters” exemplifies why his country is seeing so much unrest; meanwhile, as Occupy Wall Street participants exerted their First Amendment rights, their cellphones were being logged. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Jun 10, 2013 READ MORE


Erdogan’s Facebook

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Posted on Jun 4, 2013 READ MORE


Social Media Dark Side

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Posted on May 31, 2013 READ MORE



Screenshot via Tumblr home page

Will Yahoo ‘Ruin’ Tumblr?

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Yahoo’s board has approved a deal to buy social media site Tumblr for a whopping $1.1 billion in cash. But there’s a good reason that not everyone is enthused.

Posted on May 19, 2013 READ MORE



Careful What You Tweet For

When a staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo posted a link to “The Daily Show” on Twitter, the American and Egyptian governments learned the power of social media; with digital product placement, editors can integrate advertisements into film or television scenes that were never there to begin with; meanwhile, to make way for a parking lot near the 2014 World Cup stadium site in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian authorities are kicking indigenous squatters out. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Apr 12, 2013 READ MORE


The Papal Conclave Smoke

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Posted on Mar 11, 2013 READ MORE



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Trump Issues Warning After Twitter Account Hacked

Donald Trump is upset that someone gained access to his account and tweeted lyrics from the Will.I.Am song “Scream & Shout (Remix)” to his more than 2 million followers Thursday.

Posted on Feb 21, 2013 READ MORE


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Posted on Feb 16, 2013 READ MORE


Pope Tweets and Quits

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Posted on Feb 12, 2013 READ MORE



GOP’s Foreign Policy Unfit for a World Power

Chuck Hagel’s confirmation hearings to become secretary of defense have raised questions about the Republican Party’s ability to conduct U.S. foreign policy worthy of a major international player; Hillary Clinton may be responsible for the decline in the use of “Hillary” as a baby name; meanwhile, although President Obama is quite adept at Internet use, his tendency toward waging a “cyber war” is a deficient approach to online security. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Feb 6, 2013 READ MORE



Johan Larsson (CC-BY)

Why Textbooks Should Be Written Like Facebook Posts

Curmudgeons the world over will tell you that TV makes you go blind and expressing ideas 140 characters at a time makes you soft in the head, but some actual scientists looked into this and the results were surprising.

Posted on Jan 27, 2013 READ MORE


Facebook Search

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Posted on Jan 18, 2013 READ MORE


Twitter New Year

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Posted on Jan 1, 2013 READ MORE



Flickr/Esther Vargas

Instagram Soon Can Sell Your Photos to Advertisers Without Compensation or Notification

Here’s something to think about the next time you want to Instagram a photograph: A shift in the photo-sharing website’s policy means that picture could be sold to an advertiser and used without payment or your permission.

Posted on Dec 18, 2012 READ MORE



Guns, of Course, but What About Mental Illness?

Although gun policy is certainly important to talk about in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy, mental illnesses may be more crucial to discuss; President Obama fed the loyal Susan Rice to the sharks for the same reasons he’s both feared and admired; meanwhile, education is becoming a commodity rather than a right thanks to the neoliberal agenda. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Dec 17, 2012 READ MORE


The Pope Is on Twitter

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Posted on Dec 14, 2012 READ MORE


Social Media in the Middle East

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Posted on Nov 24, 2012 READ MORE


Tweet War

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Posted on Nov 17, 2012 READ MORE



La Bibliomata (CC BY 2.0)

Twitter Is Not Your Historical Record

A new study inspired by social media’s role in the Arab Spring has revealed that links contained in 11 percent of posts published on websites such as Twitter and Facebook were defunct within a year, leading readers to dead Web pages. And that number rose to 27 percent within two years.

Posted on Sep 20, 2012 READ MORE


Bucket Lists

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Posted on Sep 6, 2012 READ MORE



Female Official in Costa Rica Fired for Racy Video

Karina Bolanos, a vice minister in Costa Rica, was let go after a video of her claiming her longing to her lover while clad in underwear was made public on YouTube; Americans apparently throw away nearly half of their food; meanwhile, a 15-year-old used the Internet to create an advanced cancer test. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Aug 25, 2012 READ MORE



Screenshot via Progressive website

Progressive Settles After Terrible Insurance Tale Goes Viral

Progressive has settled with the family of a policyholder that claimed the insurance company defended her killer, but the deal came about only after the truly awful story made its way around the Internet.

Posted on Aug 17, 2012 READ MORE



â–“â–’â–‘ TORLEY â–‘â–’â–“ (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Truthdigger of the Week: Morgan Jones, Reporter on the Spot

It was early in the morning on July 20, when most people were asleep, that 18-year-old Morgan Jones began informing the world about the unfolding massacre in Aurora, Colo.

Posted on Jul 28, 2012 READ MORE


U.S. Defriends Bashar Assad

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Posted on Jun 1, 2012 READ MORE


What Goes Up

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Posted on May 26, 2012 READ MORE


Facebook Skyline

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Posted on May 8, 2012 READ MORE



Inside a Foxconn Factory

A look inside Foxconn gives us a new perspective on workers’ conditions; one solution to the “right to be forgotten” dilemma may be to implement mandatory online insurance; meanwhile, a Columbia grad in New York has been converting pay phone booths into libraries. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Feb 23, 2012 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT


Facebook IPO

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Posted on Feb 4, 2012 READ MORE



Flickr / Gauldo

Facebook Gets Spanked by the FTC

As you may recall, a couple of years ago Facebook was caught making users’ personal information public without advance warning, suggesting a cavalier attitude toward the issue of privacy, putting it generously. Well, the Federal Trade Commission also treated the social networking giant generously, it turns out ... (more)

Posted on Nov 29, 2011 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS



CIA

The CIA Takes to Twitter and Facebook

Is the CIA following your tweets? Or perhaps it “Likes” your latest thoughts while showering that you have posted on Facebook. These startling considerations may apply only if you’re overseas—or so the agency says.

Posted on Nov 4, 2011 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS



Gertrude Stein’s Smoking Gun

Art exhibitions reveal the real Gertrude Stein; young American Jews are disagreeing with their parents’ views on Palestine; meanwhile, the battle over bin Laden postmortem photos continues. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Oct 2, 2011 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT


Facebook

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Posted on Sep 22, 2011 READ MORE


In a London Pub

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Posted on Aug 15, 2011 READ MORE



Return of the Zapatistas

The Zapatistas in Mexico mobilize against the drug war; the AOL-HuffPo merger is starting to lose its charm; and Google’s Internet monopoly is threatened by Facebook. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Posted on Jun 14, 2011 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT


Fat Finger Politicians

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Posted on Jun 8, 2011 READ MORE


Beleaguered Rep. Weiner Endures Prolonged Twitter Scandal

With the proliferation of social media outlets, there are that many more new ways for politicians to create PR disasters for themselves. Take, for example, the object lesson provided by Rep. Anthony Weiner, whose unidentified crotchy Twitpic scandal predictably dominated the week’s news cycle—and his strategy for dealing with it didn’t exactly help, either.

Posted on Jun 2, 2011 READ MORE  |  18 COMMENTS



AP / Alastair Grant

U.S. Media Outstrips U.K. in Royal Wedding Coverage

Well, this is embarrassing: According to The Nielsen Co., the U.S. news media have outdone their U.K. counterparts in terms of covering the upcoming nuptials of Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton—and not by a small margin, either.

Posted on Apr 25, 2011 READ MORE  |  12 COMMENTS



gawker.com

How Not to Blend Current Events, Advertising

Well, this was just a colossally bad idea. Kenneth Cole, manufacturer of strangely expensive yet consistently mediocre shoes, decided to do a clever (read: not clever at all) ripped-from-the-headlines blend of promotion and news commentary via Twitter ...

Posted on Feb 3, 2011 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS


‘Social Media and the End of Gender’

In this TED talk, Johanna Blakley of USC argues that “there is an upside to having your taste monitored” online. Rather than pigeonhole you in a demographic prison, the people who make entertainment are paying more attention to what you actually like—especially if you’re a woman.

Posted on Feb 2, 2011 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS



Flickr / Gauldo

Personal Data Farmed Out by Facebook Apps

No matter how strict Facebook users may be with their settings, their bid for privacy can be compromised by third-party software developers who make those annoying apps that let users play games with each other—and, apparently, share their personal information with advertisers.

Posted on Oct 18, 2010 READ MORE



facebook.com

Jonesin’ for Their Net Fix

Researchers at the University of Maryland have studied the consequences of 200 American college students unhooking from all media—cell phones, social media, Internet—for 24 hours, finding that many suffered symptoms of withdrawal similar to those in drug and alcohol addictions.

Posted on Apr 25, 2010 READ MORE


dog with laptop
Flickr/tashmahal

Library of Congress to Store Public Tweets

Twitter users, you’ve been warned: Your thoughts while showering are about to be saved for posterity. The Library of Congress announced Thursday that the venerable institution of record was acquiring the whole public Twitter archive, so watch what you overshare from now on.

Posted on Apr 15, 2010 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT



U.S. Air Force / Senior Airman Wesley Farnsworth

Pentagon Frees Troops to Poke, Tweet and Lip-Sync to Lady Gaga

The Department of Defense didn’t have an official policy on what it calls “new/social media”—until now. Starting immediately, DoD employees (including troops) are free to use most of the non-porn Web, from Facebook to YouTube, without worrying about a court-martial. The usual rules on national security still apply. (continued)

Posted on Mar 1, 2010 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT



facebook.com

Tweeting War

The U.S. military is allowing its troops access to social media websites, including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, after a review of Internet use and security. The ruling follows a Pentagon decision in 2007 to block those sites.

Posted on Feb 27, 2010 READ MORE  |  2 COMMENTS


ENTER_ALT_TEXT
facebook.com

Unfriending Your Insurance Premiums

A British insurance price comparison service is predicting that use of social media could eventually lead to increases in home insurance premiums. Membership on Twitter or Facebook could become just another variable in determining costs, based on fears that such sites let potential criminals know when a user is not at home.

Posted on Feb 19, 2010 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT



google.com/friendconnect

Google Working on Gmail’s Social Skills

Google has been pretty successful at just about everything its engineers have attempted, with the glaring exception of social media. Still getting trounced by Facebook and losing buzzshare to upstarts like Twitter and Foursquare, the company plans to get aggressive, starting with new social features in Gmail. (continued)

Posted on Feb 8, 2010 READ MORE



gop.com

Why Stop at a Web Site When You Can Redesign the Whole Party?

The Republican Party’s new social network wants photographic evidence and an answer to the question “Why are you a Republican?” (good question). Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele brings the hip to this new Facebook for white people with a blog titled “What up?”  Update 2: This is more interesting than we realized.

Posted on Oct 13, 2009 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS


text messaging
tastyblogsnack.com

Step Away From the Blackberry

There’s a new kind of addiction out there, to which many of us are currently vulnerable, and from which some of us may be suffering right this moment: According to one Dr. Jerald Block, writing in the American Journal of Psychiatry, excessive e-mailing and text messaging could be a form of mental illness.

Posted on Mar 25, 2008 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS


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