Tag social media

The debate about social media and popular movements in the Middle East is stupid

I’ll try to make this quick, since I feel like it’s painfully obvious. Arguing either that social media “caused” these events or had “nothing to do with them” are both stupid arguments.

Clearly people are marching in the streets because they are rejecting decades of oppression, human rights violations, corruption and poverty. It’s just as clear that tools like Twitter and Facebook help people connect, communicate and organize… and… ergo, help enable popular organization. It’s just like the communications equipment assisting Solidarity in Poland. These tools are disruptive accelerators and empowerers not causers (yes, I know I just made up at least one word there).

Does anyone really think that the governments wouldn’t be trying to suppress these communication tools if they weren’t tools that worked for the people???

Come on American Media, Cover Events in Egypt!

Per my earlier tweet:

Law of Unintended Consequences: western news becomes shitty and sold out, inspires wikileaks and social media, which free the middle east

Not only is there not a single mention of the word “Egypt” above the fold on the current cnn.com homepage, but even the SOTU headline is embarrassing.

And really, are you kidding me, there’s actually four dead white girls in the secondary story? It’s like CNN has become a bad parody of itself.

Compare this to the BBC homepage from the same time stamp. I left my clock in the screenshots so it was clear they were from the same time.

American news media has become such a disgraceful joke.

Twitter followage pattern oddities

Twitter creates fascinating connections. I follow a few the US Men’s National Team soccer players. One of their sports marketing firms now follows me. Of course, in the context of Twitter this makes perfect sense. But in the context of the world at large it’s kind of mindblowing if you stop to think about it.