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Sergeant Christopher Brown, from Columbus, Ohio, was killed on April 3 by an insurgent bomb in Afghanistan, just a week into his fourth tour. But compounding the tragedy, says his widow, is the fact that she heard about the incident not through official military channels but via Facebook.
Ariell Taylor-Brown, who said had been talking over Skype with her husband “literally hours before this happened” was at home, 11 weeks pregnant with the couple’s third child, when she received a message on Facebook from a woman in Sgt. Brown’s platoon who said she should “call her immediately,” the Huffington Post reports.
(MORE: How Facebook Is Redefining Privacy)
She was then told on the phone of her husband’s death, while at home with her two children, rather than via the standard military procedure of being informed face-to-face by an army messenger visiting her home. Said Taylor-Brown:
“She told me over the phone, right in front of my kids, and I completely had a meltdown. She wasn’t supposed to but I guess she took it on her own power to do it.”
Authorities at Fort Carson, Colorado, where her husband had been stationed, are investigating three servicemembers who may have breached protocol and passed the message on using the social networking site.
A Fort Carson spokesman, Master Sergeant Craig Zentkovich, suggested that those involved could face court martial, according to local broadcaster KKTV. But he was unable to confirm that the soldiers deployed alongside Sgt. Brown were briefed on procedures concerning the death of a comrade.
MORE: Wraps Come Off Special Ops Afghan War Plan
Article source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/22/military-spouse-learns-of-husbands-death-by-facebook/
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The mobile web is broken. Big time. This week at the Breaking Development Conference in Tampa, some of the smartest minds in web development gave presentation after presentation about missing APIs, unresponsive images and load times from hell.
Just as Marc Andreessen has said that “Software Will Eat the World,” on the web, applications are eating content. “Content is king,” yes, and we need to think about “content first,” but increasingly people are consuming content through applications.
So, as I have said, there is a showdown between open standards HTML5 for delivering applications on the mobile web and native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. The flow of the future would seem to be going the way of HTML5, because as the device landscape gets more complicated and fractured, the cost of maintaing all of those different code bases becomes prohibitive, both in terms of time and money.
But, there’s a rub, in fact two. For the most part, HTML5 apps are slower than native apps, and in some cases, significantly so. In the world of mobile, optimizing for speed is the name of the game—see the success of Instagram and Tango, both native apps. And on top of that, mobile browsers do not provide device API support for many important features—especially the ability to access the camera.
As I speculated last week, Facebook’s Instagram buy is an attempt to maintain a competitive advantage in photo sharing through whatever means necessary while they wait for the HTML5 situation to improve. They may be waiting for a long time.
This is where the chess analogy comes in. If developing for the web is like three-dimensional chess to print’s two dimensions, then developing for mobile is like four-dimensional chess. But it turns out that the rivalry between Facebook, Apple and Google is turning this into HTML5-dimensional chess. Here’s what I mean:
Since Facebook launched its HTML5 application platform last year, they have placed major bets on the open web. They have developed a sophisticated HTML5 testing suite, called Ringmark, and released the code as open source. That they have twice as much traffic on their web app then on their native apps would seem to be a vindication of this approach. But the path to HTML5 apps is simple only if you ignore the important overlay of how these companies get paid.
Right now, Apple and Google get a 30% slice of any revenues, including in-app purchases, that run through their app stores. And consumers have shown a surprising willingness to pay a dollar or five for an app, but not the equivalent amount for access to a website that performs the same functions.
Facebook’s motivation for pursuing HTML5 is to play an end-around Apple and Google in the application market the way they have with their 30% take on the credits in the casual game market. Facebook may have the flow of history, and the ultimate best interests of their users on their side, but they are as commercially motivated as their opponents.
Along with releasing Ringmark, which defines mobile browser capabilities interms of a series of rings from zero to three with increasing levels of functionality, Facebook is courting developers to build “consensus” on “priorities” that the mobile browser makers, Apple, Google and now Microsoft, should build for. To that end, they have dispatched James Pearce, Head of Mobile Developer Relations, to present to developers, including those at Breaking Developement, “The real possibilities and opportunities that standardized device and network APIs can offer.” The goal is to convince them that, “Our hopes and dreams for a rich, contextual, social web will depend on them.”
Facebook, in this case, would seem to be playing white, but that doesn’t mean that they will definitively win any time soon.
Article source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/04/22/are-apple-and-google-playing-html5-chess-with-facebook/
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(Credit:
Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
So many have experienced the pain.
She tells you she’s leaving. She tells you she’s taking her pots, her pans, and all her “Twilight” tomes.
You weep. You plug Nilsson’s “Without You” into your ears on permanent play. If it’s frightfully unexpected, your insides demand revenge.
One of the less good ideas, though, is to post nude pictures of her on his Facebook page. I mention this merely because an Australian man just got 6 months in the clinker for being something of a hurt stinker.
Ravshan “Ronnie” Usmanov, 20, posted six pictures of his ex “nude in certain positions and clearly showing her breasts and genitalia.” At least that’s was the Sydney Morning Herald’s reading of the court documents.
With less control than he might have chosen, he then e-mailed her to say “Hullo, darling. I miss you so much. Please come home.” Actually, no. What the court was told is that he wrote: “Some of your photos are now on Facebook.”
Oh, what a tangled web we weave on the Web. In this case, the nude posting didn’t happen the day after his ex moved out of their shared love nest. No, it was almost three months after the sad day of her departure.
He reportedly told the police: “I put the photos up because she hurt me and it was the only thing [I had] to hurt her.”
His lawyer, Maggie Sten, explained her client’s actions like this: “‘He was upset so he put the photos up on Facebook. He did this to hurt her. He’s sorry he did that. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. It’s just not something he would normally do.”
The spur-of-the-moment thing seems to have involved quite a long moment and quite a sharp spur, however. For the Herald reported that his ex only called the police after he refused to remove the photos from world consumption.
The impulse toward public revenge is as strong as the impulse to tell the world that you are, hurray, “in a relationship.”
The world-wide noticeboard that is Facebook offers our minds — and, sadly, our emotions — a ready-made outlet for open connectedness.
Yet it surely offers a ready-made source for fear.
Those in deep and apparently never-ending love have traditionally posed for pictures of an intimate nature. However, now they now realize that — once the intimacy becomes outtimacy — the very same pictures can be give a very different role: from expression of love to cudgel of the hurt.
Might it be that, because of humanity’s essentially weak nature, we’ll start being far more closed because the potential consequences of our actions are far more open to the public eye?
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57418538-71/hurt-ex-gets-six-months-for-posting-girls-nude-pics-on-facebook/
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The British Barbz were in for a treat when Nicki Minaj stopped by the Graham Norton show on Friday (April 20) alongside actor Mark Ruffalo and comedian John Bishop in the UK. The host chops it up with the Roman rapstress about the definition of “Beez in the Trap” and why Nicki’s social media Twitter “country” of 11 million followers might have to wait for her return. –Adelle Platon
Deleting Twitter
“A voice in my head told me to delete my Twitter and I did. I hope they’ll wait for me. I know they will. I reply to people all the time, I’m known for that and I get to know them by name. I have a personal bond with them. I respond to at least 10 people a day.”
Becoming a Rapper
“I don’t really ever remember that stuff. I remember I wanted to be an actress first and then I went to school for acting and then I started, I always loved music ‘cause my mom would sing all the time. Singing was a little boring so I was like you know what, let me start rapping. I’ve been really doing it for sucha long time. I’ve put out three mixtapes and then kaboom, I was signed with Lil Wayne and this is my second album”
Meaning of “Beez In The Trap”
“It just means that’s a saying I am always. That’s our slang way of “I beez doin such and such” so it’s like I’m always in the trap. Now the trap, ladies and gentlemen, refers to anywhere that you get your money.”
Defining “Balloon Boy”
“Remember back in America with the balloon boy? His parents said that he was in a balloon and I did a rap, “You like balloon boy, mama, you ain’t never here.” Because I’m passionate about children and I just wanna eat them up and kiss them when I see them and when I saw Balloon Boy, he looked so precious and I was like, “You know what? I’m gonna make him the honorary oracle of Barb Nation” and he became some like godly force in the Barb nation.”
Working Out
“Being on stage keeps you fit. It’s like cardio. When I’m on tour, I lose a lot of weight. When I’m at home, I have to do so much to lose it. I get on the elliptical machine and that one does it for me. I’ll do it for 30 minutes every day. That’s when I’m in my workout mode.”
Article source: http://www.vibe.com/post/nicki-minaj-talks-deleting-twitter-and-defines-beez-trap-graham-norton-show-136733
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On Small Business has a new feature in which young entrepreneurs will answer common questions about small business owners’ social media needs. The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of young entrepreneurs.
How does your business use Twitter and Facebook for marketing?
Aaron Schwartz, founder and CEO of Modify Watches in Berkeley, Calif.:
(Justin Sullivan – GETTY IMAGES)
We share three types of content on Facebook and Twitter. The first is useful information — Modify recently designed a watch with proceeds going to support an incredible non-profit, Larkin Street Youth Services. We shared information on the organization and our watch design through our blog, Facebook and Twitter.
The second type of content is information that is on-brand and fun. We ask our fans to vote on winning watch designs, share first looks when product is for sale and let them have a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at our brand. Examples of the latter include sharing images from our production facilities and our brainstorm sessions on packaging and design, as well as telling more about the personal history of our team.
Finally, we like to share special opportunities with our fans. If we are hosting a flash sale or have a limited number of a certain design in stock, those who have stuck with us on social media are always the first to hear. Our guiding principle: There is so much content out there; if we do not have something insightful to say about our brand or our community, we just don’t say anything! That way, important messages are not diluted.
Anthony Saladino, co-founder and CEO of Kitchen Cabinet Kings in Staten Island, N.Y.:
Facebook and Twitter are tremendous tools for marketing purposes. We primarily use these social mediums to provide educational content on our industry, because we find that a well-informed customer is more likely to make a purchase. Our fans and followers love the free in-depth guides we create, and they utilize this information to tie together their entire remodeling project.
We also use Facebook and Twitter as a platform to post pictures of finished kitchen projects. These photos help our fans and followers to visualize our product in their homes. Additionally, we’ve also had great success offering exclusive free samples and promotional discounts. These promotional offers posted on our social media channels have directly sprung our fan base into action to redeem these exclusive offers on our Web sites. We can confidently say that our marketing efforts on Facebook and Twitter have provided us tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue.
Kelly Azevedo, founder of She’s Got Systems in Woodland, Calif.:
At She’s Got Systems, we primarily use Facebook and Twitter as a medium to market current opportunities and to connect with entrepreneurs who need support. We use social media as a tool to share high-value content, new program offers and supporting affiliates. Sometimes, these opportunities include discounts and bonuses available to our community.
However, She’s Got Systems works with clients representing a cross-section of industries that sell products, food and drink, luxury goods, destination vacations and online education. Many of our clients are in the process of launching, and a segment of our work together includes a comprehensive social media strategy to drive traffic to opt-in. It’s great to have thousands of “Likes” or followers, but it’s all about asking leads to take the next step and indicate their interest in a program or product. Then we use lead tracking software to determine which advertisements brought the most traffic and converted the best.
Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-small-business/post/how-do-you-use-twitter-and-facebook-for-marketing/2012/04/20/gIQA7NXwZT_blog.html
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By Brian Love
PARIS, April 22 |
Sun Apr 22, 2012 12:58pm EDT
PARIS, April 22 (Reuters) – France’s endeavours to prevent
premature leaks of Sunday’s first round presidential election
results set the web-warped world of Twitter alight with jibes,
jokes and cryptic messages recalling coded World War Two radio
communications.
“Netherlands-Hungary qualify for return leg,” said one tweet
in a play on the name of Socialist challenger Francois Hollande
and the origin of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s father.
Seeking to enforce a 1977 law that imposed a blackout on
disclosing results, projections or exit polls before the last
polling stations close at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), authorities
threatened fines of up to 75,000 euros ($99,000) for breaches.
But official warnings spurred derision and defiance with a
profusion of dummy results and fun-poking messages on a
micro-blogging network where national frontiers no longer exist.
The march of communications technology has made the law look
increasingly like the Maginot line of anti-tank defences which
France built on its borders in the 1920s but which failed to
prevent German tanks invading in 1940.
Some tweets even referred to the coded messages broadcast by
the Free French over Radio London to Resistance fighters in
France during World War Two.
Only two of the 10 candidates in Sunday’s first ballot go
through to a runoff on May 6, in which the conservative Sarkozy
is expected to meet the centre-left Hollande, clear favourite in
opinion polls.
Twitter users had a field day concocting new names for
candidates, imaginary news headlines of outcomes and officially
unverifiable reports of partial results from remote overseas
territories where voting took place on Saturday.
“According to observers returning from Syria, Russian tanks
left at dawn, due to arrive in Paris at 20h (8 p.m.),” read one
entry, alluding to a possible left-wing victory and closing time
at polling stations.
Other aliases for Hollande included “Gouda”, the “Flan”, a
caramel pudding that resembles one of his nicknames, and more
transparently, “Rose of Correze”, combining the Socialist colour
with Hollande’s rural constituency in central France.
For Sarkozy, they included “platform heels”, a reference to
Sarkozy’s penchant for shoes that give the diminutive president
a few extra centimetres in photographs, “Rolex” in a nod to his
taste for flashy wrist wear, and “Goulash”, a Hungarian recipe.
“Daddy’s girl” clearly alluded to far-right candidate Marine
Le Pen, who took over from her father Jean-Marie last year as
head of the anti-immigration National Front.
Firebrand leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon was branded “hot red
pepper” by one micro-message sender.
Some messages relayed unofficial partial results or send-ups
of result headlines, using candidates’ real names, but with
their scores blotted out or drowned in a jumble of numbers and
characters.
Polling institutes traditionally prepare reliable estimates
for their clients, TV and radio stations, in the two hours
between polling stations closing in most areas at 6 p.m. (1600
GMT) and the late closers in the big cities, opening up a gap
when information can leak.
Among the myriad messages with a wartime ring were ones that
mocked Sarkozy for his 2007 post-victory cruise aboard the
private yacht of multi-millionaire businessman Vincent Bollore.
“Pink wave turns to tsunami, Bollore yacht in difficulty,”
said one.
($1 = 0.7571 euros)
(Editing by Paul Taylor)
Article source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/22/france-election-twitter-idUSL5E8FM05820120422
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(RNN) – We’ve all heard about how ill-advised photos on Facebook can cost you a shot at a job.
But, used wisely, your social network presence can also help you stand out from a crowd of candidates.
A survey by CareerBuilder shows nearly 30 percent of employers who research potential hires on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks have discovered information that gave them the confidence to make – not reject – a hire.
The kind of information that put a candidate over the top? Employers surveyed cited as positives content that gave a hiring manager a good feel for a potential employee’s personality or conveyed a professional image.
Around half who utilized social networking to research a candidate discovered the person had a wide range of interests and great communication skills, and 44 percent found the candidate of choice was creative.
The survey of more than 2,000 hiring managers and human resources professionals shows 37 percent of companies research candidates through social media. Employers overwhelmingly utilize Facebook and LinkedIn to research candidates. A few use Twitter.
The key to creating a great profile means realizing Facebook and other social networks are not your diary, where you can safely vent your personal opinions or share your life under lock and key.
“Trusting Facebook privacy settings as a way to make sure employers don’t see bad pictures or [comments about] how much you hate your job, that’s not really safe or a good idea,” said Angela Connor, vice president and director of social media at Capstrat, a communications firm based in Raleigh, NC.
Not only are you beholden to the ever-changing Facebook privacy landscape (who can keep up?), Connor says you’re also at the mercy of your friends’ privacy settings. Just because your Facebook wall is private doesn’t mean your comments on a friend’s wall or photo is private.
And the recently added Facebook stalker feed, errr, news ticker means if you comment on a friend’s status or picture, people who aren’t mutual friends of both parties are likely to see that.
“The best approach is to assume anything I say can become public, even if you think you’re locked down like Fort Knox,” Connor said.
“If you’re locked down, an employer really can’t get in. But you don’t know who they’re friends with. You could be a second connection by chance and you never know it.”
Even if your Twitter account is private, followers can retweet what you say.
So how can you create a “viral footprint” you’d want an employer to follow?
It’s not just about what you don’t post, but about what you do post.
“When I give you my resume, I’m giving you a two dimensional view of who I say I am. If you check out my viral footprint, you see a much fuller picture of who I am,” said Michael P. Grace, founder of Virallock, a company that specializes in helping teens and young adults clean up their online reputation and establish a more positive presence.
“Right, wrong or indifferent, social media platforms have changed the reality of our lives. Facebook wasn’t intended to be an extension of your resume, but the reality is, it’s become that.”
Grace recommends embracing the idea that your social media page is an extension of your life and using it to your advantage.
If you list “camp counselor” on your resume, make sure there are photos on your Facebook or Twitter page that illustrate that.
“If you have it on your resume, you need to have some trail of that on your social media presence,” he said.
Such photos, Grace says, are part of how you brand yourself.
Connor says those personal photos, statuses and tweets also paint a picture of you as an entire person, not just an employee.
“It’s smart to have a good mix of who you are professionally and personally.
You don’t want to go too far personally, but if you’re establishing yourself as an expert on a subject, it’s OK every now and then to say you were at your kid’s soccer game or that you love to cook because it shows you’re well rounded,” she said.
“That tells a bigger and better story and so many people leave that out because they think the only thing that’s going to sell them is their last five jobs.”
Both also recommend blogging on a subject of interest to establish your voice in your industry of choice.
“It gives someone an idea of what your writing skills are like. There’s a clear way to differentiate yourself if you can show a track record of blogging about something,” Grace said.
And unless you’re applying for a job as the Chick-fil-a cow, use proper grammar: Itz not fun 4 any1 2 hav 2 figure out wat ur really saying.
“You’re not showcasing your communication skills when you use text lingo, whether it’s bad or not. To me, it shows a lack of maturity, quite frankly. Laziness, a lack of effort,” Grace said.
Finally, put some thought into your profile picture. Obvious no no’s are photos that imply excessive drinking, any kind of drug use or pictures of you in barely-there attire.
And no duck face. Just don’t.
But a photo doesn’t have to be inappropriate to turn off a potential employer.
“Don’t take a picture in the bathroom. Go find a wall [to stand in front of] if nothing else. Don’t have on clown makeup. I see this all the time, don’t crop your wedding photo. Don’t have on a swimsuit. Don’t be at the beach, don’t have a drink in your hand,” Connor said.
“Be conscious of everything. You never know what’s going to cause any employer to say ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ and it could be your picture.”
The bottom line?
“When I was growing up, the saying was, ‘Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want on the front page of a newspaper.’ That doesn’t even make sense to kids now. Now it’s, ‘Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want tweeted to your mom or dad or school,’” Grace said.
Copyright 2012 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
Article source: http://www.kctv5.com/story/17589585/looking-for-work-sell-yourself-on-facebook
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Admit it. Sometimes youre part of the social-media problem, spreading news and views you find online without knowing if the information is good./ppRumors and misinformation, granted, are ancient parts of discourse. But this is an election year, and social media platforms have turned the rumor mill into a supercharged rumor turbine, something that can be electronically manipulated and monitored. And that changes the political game./ppResearchers will be closely watching how it plays out, especially through Twitter./ppThats because they can. The open platform is enabling scientists to build computer models that help them see how misinformation travels./ppWhat makes social media different is that we have much easier ways of tracking how rumors spread, said Jonah Berger at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, who studies social epidemics./ppWhat worries many experts even some ardent defenders of free speech is that bad information that moves fast enough and far enough, through the power of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, has the potential of warping the democratic process./ppA well-crafted lie that goes viral the week before an election could affect outcomes./ppThats the dark side of social media theres more libel, more defamation, more urban myths and harmful information getting out, said David L. Hudson Jr., of the First Amendment Center, a think tank that advocates the tenets of our first freedoms. I dont like to sound like a censor, Im for free speech. But I am concerned about this open spreading of rumors and the rushing to judgment./ppWere approaching a sobering realization that this new, revolutionary media does come with some dangers./ppPolitical campaigns this year will pour record sums perhaps 10 percent of their resources into establishing a presence in social media, which strategists view as both an opportunity and a potential curse. Some experts envision races hinging on the campaign errors, misstatements and smear tactics that rivals engineer to go viral./ppWhen Twitter or YouTube push the propaganda, it all becomes public which I think is a good thing, said Jeff Roe of the political consulting group Axiom Strategies, headquartered in Kansas City./ppUsing social media is free, making it a no-brainer communication tool not only for groups that seek to propagate their version of a story, but to the tens of millions of Americans on the receiving end. But Roe doesnt see it as a great bargain:/pp Statements made in error that go viral can be very expensive to a campaign when it needs to fight back. /ppThe technologies of new media turn everyone who uses them into news sources, blasting out information, with attached links, in one click. /ppTheres a certain ego that goes with being the first to hear something and share it, whether its true or not, said Eric Melin of Spiral16, an Overland Park consulting firm using 3-D imagery to chart the circuitous paths of attack tweets, damaging rumors and viral tales that spring from social media./ppIt may be a truth, a half-truth or the early stage of a hoax the finger found in Wendys chili went viral in Facebooks early days before police exposed it as a scam. /ppThis urge, this snap reflex to share a rumor in an instant, has a name: FOMO fear of missing out, or being the last in your network to know./ppBerger of the Wharton School has found that news on the Internet is most apt to go viral when it touches extreme emotions like laughter or anger. Both are kryptonite to businesses and organizations, including political campaigns, that are trying to project honest, everyday values./ppIn politics, grass roots is everything. But social media platforms have given rise to a new strategy to watch out for: the Astroturf campaign./ppIts designed to look like the online conversations of regular people when its really spawned by insiders shooting automated messages they hope will catch fire./ppAmong those watching for this will be Indiana University computer scientist Filippo Menczer, whose research team first tracked Astroturf campaigns in the 2010 elections./ppEveryones doing it fake tweets and fake accounts in an effort to attract real-life Twitter followers into the discussion, he said./ppAnd the wide-open nature of social media makes manipulation all the more tempting. Interactive service providers such as YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter are effectively immune from lawsuits, thanks to a 1996 federal law./ppThis is the wild west, Menczer said, where theres no control whatsoever of social-media content./ppspan class=”subhead”Friend to friend/span/ppIts hard to knock what social media have achieved so far./ppTheyve been credited with empowering the previously powerless, liberating peoples from oppressive regimes, exposing bad behavior among public officials./pp(Some of that behavior was related to social media, such as the sharing of sexually explicit photos that drove U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat, out of office.)/ppThe instantaneous, friend-to-friend-to-friend magic of the platforms, however, also fueled swine-flu scares in 2009, when Kansas City-area schools had to respond to false rumors of outbreaks./ppEven if the technology allows information and misinformation to spread in a flash, it allows countless users to fact-check and verify just as quickly, said Kevin Bankston of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit that promotes free, unfettered expression on the Web./ppIts always been that a lie will make itself halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on, Bankston said. Today, the social media turbocharges that process/ppStill, this access we all have to knowledge and instantaneous sources of information is a good thing for humanity./ppThe old-fashioned forms of media put out bad information, too. It was The New York Times, after all, that erroneously declared U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords dead from a shooting in Arizona an embarrassment the newspaper attributed to a reporter bypassing editorial checkpoints to rush copy to the Web./ppBut only the Wild West of social media could deliver the following fake report on the @foxnewspolitics Twitter page./pp span class=”italic”@BarackObama has just passed. The President is dead. A sad 4th of July, indeed./span/ppA hacker had infiltrated the Fox News account, which had 36,000 followers, and began posting several reports of Obama having been assassinated in Iowa./ppThe fraudulent posts first appeared in the hours after midnight last Independence Day, and though FoxNews.com quickly spotted the hoax, the news network had to wait hours for Twitter to respond to Foxs request to reclaim the account./ppDelays at Twitter kept the bogus news displayed past dawn./pp Earlier this month, the FBI and New York Police Department opened an investigation into a potential terror threat after several digitally enhanced images of the New York skyline appeared on an Islamic terrorist groups online forum. The graphic carried a caption, Al Qaeda coming soon again in New York./pp Terrorist organizations commonly weave empty threats into social media. The coming soon graphic is likely another one, said Steve Stalinsky of the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors the Web activity of terrorist groups. But could a flurry of idle threats lead to a cry wolf complacency that puts America at greater risk of a real attack? /pp The Taliban has several Twitter accounts and theyre very social-media savvy, Stalinsky said. YouTube is totally infested with Jihadi propaganda Why is this allowed to happen?/pp Most social-media platforms will flag or remove hate speech and deceptive spam when such material is brought to the service providers attention. Twitter early his year announced it will restrict offensive content in countries that have different ideas about the contours of economic freedom./pp The company cited the examples of France and Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content./ppspan class=”subhead”Gone viral/span/ppRecent cases of social-media causes gone viral underscore the benefits of the public platforms as well as the drawbacks./ppLast month, the hottest video in the history of YouTube turned out to be artful spin, the story of an east African conflict almost two decades older than YouTube itself./ppThe Kony 2012 mini-documentary nonetheless seemed fresh, credible and urgent to Twitter and Facebook users, who shot out links to the half-hour video, from friend to friend, until it drew more than 25 million views./pp The clip elicited public horror and a supportive U.S. Senate resolution for the invisible children of Uganda, youngsters abducted and enslaved as soldiers by rebel leader Joseph Kony. /ppForeign-policy experts eventually pointed out that Kony hadnt been stirring much trouble and hadnt even been seen in Uganda for several years. Donating money to help the country capture him, as the viral video implored, might not be such a wise thing, traditional news sources reported./ppAn online petition campaign launched by a Texas mother set off alarms over a ground-beef additive dubbed pink slime. The cheap, finely textured filler has been served up on school lunch trays, diner counters and kitchen tables for decades, and its treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria./ppThe federal government and some food-safety groups say pink slime is safe. But the public outcry was virulent enough to shut down some meat factories and drive grocers to clear their shelves of ammonia-treated beef./ppMany school districts, bowing to online petitions, pledged from here on to serve only the more expensive, slime-less beef./ppAs with Kony 2012, the pink slime controversy raised awareness and triggered citizen action in ways once unimaginable. But food without the additive will require more cattle, and industry groups say the public will pay more to stock school cafeterias./ppDavid B. Schmidt, president of the International Food Information Council, issued an online statement:/ppSomething is seriously out of kilter in our communications environment when safe food products and proven technologies can be torpedoed by sensationalist, misleading, yet entertaining social media campaigns. We should all take several steps back and remember the critical thinking skills we were taught in school./ppDefenders of unregulated social media, and there are plenty, counter: We were also taught democracy in schools. If not for throngs of Facebook friends and everyday tweeters, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat, may never have introduced a labeling bill to at least let consumers know when theyre buying pink slime./ppChoice.org the petition site that gave rise to the pink-slime crusade (and also sharpened national attention on the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin) removes discriminatory causes and postings that call for violence. Website spokeswoman Megan Lubin said those cases were rare: Most everyone is responsible when using the open platform./ppIt was the first time in history that more than 1 million comments were generated on a food petition at the FDA, said Sue McGovern, spokeswoman for the Just Label It Campaign. The exact number was 1,149,967 Its those mammoth, historical numbers that Washington, D.C., is taking a look at in the viral age./ppspan class=”subhead”Tracking tweets/span/ppSome contend the best way to thwart the dangers of social media is to fight fire with fire better technology./ppThe U.S. government is pushing to detect online persuasion campaigns and to develop counter-messaging software against adversaries (who) may exploit social media and related technologies for disinformation, according to a Pentagon statement to The Wall Street Journal./pp Its an arms race, said disinformation sleuth Menczer of Indianas Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, recipient of a $2 million Defense Department grant. We may develop better detection tools only to see political and commercial interests invest in beating these tools./pp The center he directs has a website, Truthy.indiana.edu, that monitors the Twittersphere to detect how political groups take advantage of it./ppThe Truthy project spotted suspicious patterns in the 2010 elections. Several Twitter accounts created simultaneously along with Web links launched the same day gave the illusion of real people having conversations. In fact, they were dummy accounts automatically tweeting and re-tweeting each other./pp Followers of those accounts would get the sham tweets and be directed to Web sites resembling news organizations, Menczer said. Some of the reports would accuse a campaigns opponent of backing legislation such as health reform and cap-and-trade proposals for personal gain./ppOnce the strategy goes viral and a topic, or meme, is followed with Menczers computers tracing common hash tags, URLs and repeated phrases digital images of the activity do resemble a biological virus./ppBut tracking this tangle of tweets, links and retweets back to the original source can be difficult, giving political campaigns deniability if confronted about the schemes./ppIn the 2008 Massachusetts race for U.S. Senate, Wellesley College scientists P. Takis Metaxas and Eni Mustafaraj detected a pattern of Twitter-bombs against Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate./ppDuring the week leading up to the vote, the researchers noted a spike in Web searches that directed users to a disproportionate flurry of tweets smearing Coakley. The social-media traffic built enough for Google to tag the race a trending topic, and Republican Scott Brown scored a surprise victory./pp The race in Massachusetts was the first election in which social media absolutely changed the conversation, said Mustafaraj, who noted the anti-Coakley tweets carried morsels of truth./ppIn order for these things to spread, it cant be a complete falsehood, Mustafaraj said. You hope that other media will pick up on the story./ppIn time, other research shows, a social-media falsehood finds ways to die. Tracking the tweets from the zone of an earthquake that devastated Chile in 2010, computer analyst Barbara Poblete discovered that accurate reports from victims traveled faster and farther than did the false rumors./pp Melin, of Overland Parks Spiral16, notices the same: Bad information has ways of correcting itself, a phenomenon that social media defenders attribute to the collective wisdom of crowds./pp It does seem to actually work in the end, he said. Believe it or not.
Article source: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/21/3569194/social-media-make-rumor-mill-faster.html
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The baby is Peaches and fiance Thomas Cohen’s first child
11:34am UK, Sunday April 22, 2012
Peaches Geldof, the daughter of Live Aid founder Bob Geldof and the late Paula Yates, has given birth to a son.
Miss Geldof, 23, announced the arrival of Astala on the social network site Twitter, writing: “Yes, its true- I’M A MUMMY!!!!”
The baby, with fiance Thomas Cohen, lead singer of band S.C.U.M, is her first.
Miss Geldof later updated her Twitter profile, adding: “My little boy is the most beautiful thing in this world. When he holds @tomfromscum’s finger with his hand its the sweetest thing ever. X”
Max Dundas, Miss Geldof’s publicist said: “Peaches and Thomas are delighted to announce the birth of their son Astala. Both were overjoyed at his arrival this week.”
Mr Cohen, 20, said on Twitter: “I’m a dad he is the most perfect thing ever so proud of his beautiful mum @peaches_g and overcome with joy x.”
Article source: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/Peaches-Geldof-Gives-Birth-To-Son-Astala-Bob-Geldof-Daughter-Announces-News-On-Twitter/Article/201204416213644?f=rss
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Ariell Taylor-Brown didn’t learn of her husband’s death in the way military spouses typically fear – via a knock on the door. She found out Staff Sgt. Christopher Brown had been killed by an insurgent bomb in Afghanistan, via Facebook.
Taylor-Brown was browsing the social network when another soldier from her husband’s platoon sent her a message to call urgently. It was an emergency, she was told, but she had didn’t know what kind of emergency. When she called, she was told the worst news a wife could hear.
“A girl in his platoon,” Taylor-Brown told CBS. “She told me to call her immediately and I was in front of my kids and I completely had a breakdown.”
Merely a few hours earlier, the two had been chatting on Skype. Brown had only been there for a week.
He had served twice in Iraq and was on his second deployment in Afghanistan. He had earned a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and an Army Commendation Medal.
The military instructs soldiers not to inform anyone of a death before the next of kin have been told, which is typically done in person. Two soldiers did indeed turn up at Taylor-Brown’s house two hours after she had found out. By then, of course, it was too late.
Since this is a breach of the rules, the military is investigating the fact Taylor-Brown was told her husband was dead before she was informed officially. Most soldiers are warned not to release information about a death, but it’s currently unclear if the soldiers who deployed with Brown were specifically told how to handle the sharing of such news. If it is determined orders were broken, there’s a chance the solider in question will face court martial.
Online communication services, such as Facebook and Skype, help us stay connected, but they also mean we can do so faster and more efficiently. As with any technology, there are always downsides to the upsides.
Taylor-Brown is a widow with two children, and a third on the way. She says she will name her newborn Carter Christopher because that is what her husband would have wanted.
See also:
Article source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/soldiers-wife-learns-of-his-death-via-facebook/12031
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