Kuwait Says Social Networks Must Be Regulated To 'Safeguard The Cohesiveness Of Society'

from the i-had-no-idea-it-was-at-risk dept

Apparently, an unregulated Twitter and Facebook might lead to society coming apart at the seams. At least that appears to be the somewhat ridiculous assertion of the Kuwaiti government as it prepares to regulate the usage of social networking sites, officially in order to "safeguard the cohesiveness of the population and society." Of course, that's silly. Social networking tools are used all the time to bring people together and to have discussions -- and also for less socially beneficial reasons. But the technology is just a tool for communication. By itself, it's neither good nor bad. Of course, given how those tools have been useful in larger protests and even regime changes around the Middle East over the past 18 months, one might guess that this new crackdown is a bit more about safeguarding the power of the existing government.

Filed Under: crackdown, kuwait, social media
Companies: facebook, twitter

Social Reader Apps: Better Than Paywalls, But Still Walls

from the just-let-us-in-the-damn-garden dept

If you're a Facebook user, by now you've probably run into the "Social Reader App" walls that some websites have put in between you and their content. It's easy to see why the content providers might want you to use these apps, and clearly some people are using them happily, but most of the time they are just frustrating. I've yet to see one that provides a clear and obvious link to bypass the app and view the content—though some do slip it in at the bottom or say something counterintuitive like "press cancel to continue to the website". It's a classic example of trying to get more out of your users without offering them anything in return.

Joseph Kranak points us to a segment of The Oatmeal's awesome State of the Web, Spring 2012 Edition which, as usual, nicely skewers the whole situation (click for big version):

Be sure to check out the rest of the State of the Web, which includes an ode to Kickstarter and some suggestions for a Valve/Apple gaming console.

Filed Under: social media, the oatmeal

Are Facebook 'Likes' Protected By The First Amendment?

from the they-should-be,-but... dept

There are lots of details in this case that aren't worth getting into, but in a dispute over a firing of some employees for the local sheriff, after they "liked" the Facebook profile of someone running for election against their boss, a court appears to have declared that Facebook "likes" don't get First Amendment protection. It feels like the court was more focused on reaching the result it wanted, rather than thinking through the implications of its own ruling.

Venkat Balasubramani's assessment of the ruling is so good that I'm going to repeat it here:

Gak!

The court’s conclusion on qualified immunity may or may not be defensible, but the court veered off course in concluding that a Facebook like is not speech. Maybe the court slept through Arab Spring and the many other instances of online activism in the past five years. Maybe the court is unaware of the robust body of First Amendment precedent which says that protection for expression is not limited to just actual words. Hello, Tinker (black arm bands) and Texas v. Johnson (flag burning)! More likely, as Eric notes in his comments below, the practical implications of a "like" threw the court for a loop.

It’s easy to dismiss Facebook "likes" as one of those mindless knee-jerk online activities we all routinely engage in that have little or no societal value. Courts can discount Facebook friendships in other contexts (see, e.g., Quickly v. Karkus, discussed here: “It’s Officially Legal: Facebook Friends Don’t Count”), but it’s well off the mark to say in this case that "likes" were not speech for First Amendment purposes. As menial as a Facebook like may be in the overall scheme of life, it’s an announcement to your Facebook friends that you support something, whether it’s a cause, a candidate, a company, or another person. A like also promotes a particular page or newsfeed to your friends, which sounds like quintessential expressive activity. [See Eric's comments below for various potential implications of a Facebook like.]

While I remain leery of Facebook's "like" ecosystem, I "dislike" this ruling.

As Eric Goldman notes later on that same page:

Listing a person's name as an "endorser" of a political candidate is core First Amendment activity. That's exactly what the "likes" did here.

Perhaps it's just a simple way of "dismissing" a Facebook "like" as being something inconsequential. Many "likes" are, indeed, inconsequential, but not all of them are. And, there's nothing in the First Amendment that says that inconsequential expressions of opinion are somehow less protected (or not protected at all). Who knows if this ruling will be challenged, but it's difficult to see how it would survive higher level scrutiny.

Filed Under: arab spring, first amendment, social media
Companies: facebook

Why Do We Celebrate The 'Solitary' Experience Of Books But Decry The Social Experience Of Online Social Media?

from the newness-vs.-oldness dept

We already wrote making people more lonely, but that same piece made Mathew Ingram go on a bit of rant on Twitter raising a good point. He noted that the same folks who decry social media for making people lonely often celebrate the importance of the solitary experience of reading books. He finds it odd that the solitary experience of reading books is seen as sacrosanct and notes that both experiences can be used to "escape from the real world." So why is one considered bad and one considered an important cultural point?

I'd guess part of it is simply generational. As Douglas Adams has stated (I'm paraphrasing slightly), every tech around by the time you're born is "normal," new technology that is invented before you're thirty is cool and new and anything that gets invented after you're thirty is "against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it." It seems there's definitely an element of that happening here. Also, there's some view that talking to friends is just idle chatter... whereas reading a book is a "serious" thing from which you might learn. Of course, the fact that the most popular books are probably just as insight free as many online conversations is ignored. It's not like everyone reading books is digging into a meaty exploration of ways to solve all the world's problems. Either way, Mathew raises a good point. I'd be curious if someone can defend the importance of books while also defending the claim that social networking is useless without being self-contradictory.

Filed Under: books, douglas adams, mathew ingram, sherry turkle, social media, solitude

UK Police Planning To Arrest Twitter Users For Mentioning The Name Of A Rape Victim

from the free-speech? dept

The UK apparently has a law that protects the identity of the victims of sexual assault and rape. It's understandable why such laws exist. However, once a name gets out, as it has in a recent high profile case involving footballer Ched Evans (sentenced to five years in jail for raping a woman), does it really make sense to arrest Twitter users for mentioning her name? Now, this is no Ryan Giggs-type case, despite the superficial similarities. This does involve the victim of a horrific crime. However, at some point, you have to come to terms with reality, and recognize that even if you don't want the name out there, it's out there. Apparently it was such common knowledge that the name was trending as one of the most popular topics on Twitter. At that point, what good does arresting Twitter users do? It doesn't put the genie back in the bottle, and it's unlikely to make people not share other names. It just enrages people for telling them they can't talk about something they want to talk about.

The laws on these types of issues were designed to prevent the press from broadcasting the name. The problem here is that in the internet age, we've all become the press -- even as most people think of these tools as being more like a typical conversation. And that's where the law breaks down. While it may be legal to arrest folks on Twitter for mentioning this woman's name, it clearly goes beyond the purpose or intent of the law, and doesn't seem to do much good.

Filed Under: ryan giggs, social media, twitter trends, uk

French Tweeters Get Around Ban On Tweeting Election Results Using WWII-Era Codes

from the gouda-cheese dept

Last week, we wrote about how French Twitter users were being warned not to use social media tools like Twitter to reveal local polling or election results before all the French voting booths closed in the Presidential election. We pointed out how silly this was, and it appears that folks in France used a simple mechanism to get around the rules: using WWII-era coding techniques to share information in the same manner that the French Resistance used:

As a result, incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy became either Tokaji wine which, like his father, comes from Hungary, or Rolex because of his perceived "bling-bling" lifestyle.

His Socialist opponent Francois Hollande was either Gouda cheese (from Holland) or a soft, sweet "Flanby" caramel desert -- an old and unforgiving nickname for the portly frontrunner.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen was associated with the names of totalitarian regimes or rodents and Communist Party-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon was either a rotten tomato or something linked to the former Soviet Union.

From there, it sounds like people just had fun with it, figuring out all sorts of ways to obliquely refer to the different candidates and how well they were doing without directly referring to any of them. Once again, the internet views censorship as an obstacle, and routes around it, through a rather creative form of "encryption."

Filed Under: code, election, france, social media, world war two

Cargo Cult Reverse Activism: Maximalists Think That If They Use Social Media They Can Counteract Public Concerns

from the yeah-that's-how-it-works dept

We've talked in the past about cargo cult science and how a rather superficial understanding of complex situations leads people to only copy those superficial elements in the belief that they are why something works. Then, of course, when it doesn't work, they're confused. It's why South Pacific islanders thought that if they staffed the airport, American soldiers would return with supplies. It's why GM thought that if they just rebuilt the NUMMI plant inch-for-inch, they'd get the same production elsewhere.

I'm left thinking about this as I read about how some IP maximalists at a gathering about how to "counter" the public are discussing the importance of social media and their own usage of it. Even reading about the discussion sounds oddly stilted -- like your parents trying to sound cool by using youth slang:

The role of social media in promoting IP will be a key topic. For example, both USPTO Director David Kappos and EPO President Benoit Battistelli regularly write blogs about their respective offices.

The offices represented on the panel also use Twitter and Facebook as well as conventional media such as TV to communicate with users and society generally.

Oh my goodness. Can you believe it? They blog? They use Twitter and Facebook? They must know everything!

Perhaps, at some point, they'll realize it's not the usage of social media that made a difference, but the fact that the people using social media find these issues to be serious and important, and don't believe the official explanations for why they have to lock down content.

Filed Under: cargo cult, copyright maximalist, social media

French Voters Warned To Stay Off Social Media Lest They 'Crash The Election'

from the not-likely dept

Update: Apparently the Guardian made a translation error, and the French 'bugger' is actually borrowed from the English 'bug' (as in computer bug) and just means 'crash'.

Last year, we wrote about a situation developing in Canada, where a strict reading of legacy election laws made it illegal for east-coast voters to discuss exit polls on Facebook or Twitter until polling stations across the country had officially closed. Now, the Guardian reports that a more or less identical situation has cropped up in France, where newspapers and regulators are warning citizens to keep mum about early results in the upcoming presidential election.

French law prohibits the media from publishing polls or exit surveys between midnight on the Friday before election day until all the voting stations have closed on Sunday – 8pm in cities and 6pm in towns.

This is strictly upheld. Because of time differences, French voters in overseas territories and departments, such as Martinique and Guadeloupe, will have gone to the polls the previous day; knowing early results in areas where the outcome is expected to be close could influence last-minute voters.

The French commission for opinion polls has ruled that Twitter and Facebook fall within the legal definition of media and are bound by the law.

The Journal du Dimanche headlined an article about the situation: "Twitter fera-t-il bugger l'élection?" (Will Twitter bugger crash the election?)

As we noted last year with regard to Canada, such laws are holdovers from a time when the national media was controlled by a few key players. In the modern world, where everyone is the media, they are completely impractical. And indeed, as the Canadian election wrapped up, it became clear that citizens were completely ignoring the rule, even going so far as to set up a website dedicated to aggregating such tweets. In fact it seemed that the law actually drove more people to share early results online—and then the whole story sort of fizzled, when Elections Canada admitted that they only investigate and enforce the law in response to specific complaints.

As the Guardian notes, such a law is perhaps more significant in France, where the overseas territories mean the polling window spans two days. But, whatever arguments there may be for protecting the sanctity of elections, the law is still unenforceable. I suspect we'll see the same disregard in France as we did in Canada—and probably the same lack of repercussions, depending on the outcome of the vote. Someday, somewhere in the world, we may see a close election get contested on the grounds that such a law was broken—and that will spark a huge debate about the role of social media and the internet in election polling. But for now, it's unlikely that many people will heed the warnings and alter their behavior.

Filed Under: election, france, social media
Companies: facebook, twitter

Independent Panel Compares London Riots To Arab Spring, Highlights Hypocrisy Of Wanting To Control Social Media

from the do-as-i-say-not-as-i-do dept

After last year's riots in London, the British government established an independent panel to try to make some sense of what happened. Among the many things they examined were the claims by some that social media and text messaging were largely responsible, and that the government might need some kind of "kill switch" on these services to stop the same thing from happening again. The panel recently published an interim report, and their response to the social media question (as highlighted in the Guardian) is refreshing:

On the role of social networks, the panel concluded that rioters were aided by instant messaging services but warned against plans to shut down websites such as Twitter and Facebook. They pointed out that the UK has pledged support for the open use of social media during the Arab spring uprising across the Middle East.

"Mobile communications technology is continually evolving and new developments may benefit the police and authorities rather than rioters," the panel concluded. They added that some mobile networks have installed systems to detect crowds and the direction they are moving in so they can manage congestion.

"In the future, it may be possible to use cell congestion monitoring as a tool to tackle rioting," the report found. "What is clear from the riots is that there is no simple 'switch off' solution. Viral silence may have as many dangers as viral noise."

This touches on a couple of points we've made before—like the fact that smart cops can use social media to their advantage—but the highlight is the direct and unabashed comparison to the Arab spring riots. That's a controversial topic, with many people insisting that rioters in a democracy are fundamentally different than those in living under an oppressive regime. While I can see how people have less sympathy for the former, this argument has always bothered me, because it is used as justification for stronger methods (like shutting down Twitter) of stopping riots. That creates a strange paradox: the idea that oppressive measures are acceptable, but only for non-oppressive governments. While it's easy to look at some of the London rioters and see spoiled kids, it's important to remember that dictators see the rioters in their countries the same way.

So it's nice to see the panel underline the contradiction of supporting the open internet in the Middle East while wanting to control it at home. We've noted this exact hypocrisy at play in the U.S., where the State Department takes a vocal public stance in favor of an open internet around the world, while their diplomats quietly push copyright censorship systems in other countries—or where Joe Biden can opine against censorship while supporting SOPA and its censorship provisions. Of course, in that regard, the UK is not much better, and seems to have a similar blind spot when it comes to copyright law and the many ways it contradicts their stance on internet freedom.

Filed Under: arab spring, london, riots, social media, social networks, uk
Companies: facebook, twitter

Israeli/Iranian Citizens Reach Out Over Facebook For Peace

from the come-on-people-now-smile-on-your-brother dept

Disparate aspects of the ongoing advance of technology throughout the world are coming together in a very interesting and heartwarming result. As groups continue the attempt to connect everyone in the world by the near-future, we've also seen how social media has been used recently to organize and deploy protests and citizen activism, particularly in the Middle East. But those two stories are converging into a fascinating display of communication between two rival nations in that troubled region.

In case you've been sleeping under a rock these past few months, it turns out the governments of Iran and Israel have some minor quibbles with one another. As a result, there's been much saber-rattling and boot-stomping between the two governments and popular opinion tends to be it's a matter of when, not if, the bullets and bombs begin flying. If one is not nuanced enough to separate out these nation's governments from their people, one might assume the common people in each state are equally rivalrous. This separation is made all the more difficult by the way both nations close off communication with one another, such that an individual in Israel is completely unable to make a simple phone call to an Iranian area code (it's blocked at the government level).

But if you happen to think closing off all communication is silly and counter-productive (like me), you'll be delighted to know that the internet is here to save the day. CNN has the story of one Israeli citizen, Ronny Edry, a graphic designer, who thinks the prospect of pre-emptive war with Iran is absolutely insane, so he developed some simple but striking "posters" and put them up on Facebook.

"My idea was simple, I was trying to reach the other side. There are all these talks about war, Iran is coming to bomb us and we bomb them back, we are sitting and waiting. I wanted to say the simple words that this war is crazy," said Edry.

The images featured pictures of various Israelies, such as Edry himself and his neighbors along with their children, and a message:

Now if you're cynical, or you watch too much cable news, you might be wondering what the big deal is. So an Israeli made some posters and put them on Facebook. So what?

The response, said Edry, was overwhelming. "In a few hours, I had hundreds of shares and thousands of likes and it was like something was happening.

"I think it's really amazing that someone from Iran poked me and said 'Hello, I'm from Iran, I saw your "poster" on Facebook,' " Edry said.

And that's when the posters created by Iranian citizens in return began flooding in. Posters with messages of peace and commonality. I found one particular post on Edry's Facebook page from an Iranian to be particularly heartening:

We share a common history, have been sharing both our great and ancient cultures, languages and poetry together. ... We are so similar, and politicians cannot cut a tie that has been tied thousands of years ago. I am proud to have you as my friends.

I'm not going to go all peace, love and flower power on you, but this is why the internet age is so important. It's also why cutting off communication between nations, or allowing even the first steps of internet censorship to take hold, must be stopped at all costs. It's not just about copyright, or flash mobs, or YouTube videos showing Spaceballs clips. The internet is ultimately about people sharing with one another, whether they're sharing thoughts, images like this, or whatever. It's about commonality. It's about creating a web of bonds through which communication and understanding can flow.

And now, I'm realizing, it's about giving every man and woman the power to do what their blowhard, acrimonious politicians won't do: talk to one another.

Filed Under: connections, iran, israel, social media
Companies: facebook