Tweets to go down in history

The 210-year-old, Library of Congress is the "guardian of knowledge and cultural history," andas such they have taken it upon themselves to keep record of all of the countries cultural history. This now includes tweets. The New York times wrote an articleabout the decision of the LOC. This means that the 55 million plus tweets, from all users - from politicians like President Barrack Obama to celebrities like Ashton Kutcher to average-joe's like me - will be saved in the Library of Congress...that's a lot of data! Academic's have looked at this as a good move for the LOC, saying for "of years, ... the historical record has tended to be somewhat elitist because of its selectivity. In books, magazines and newspapers, ... it is the prominent and the infamous who are written about most frequently," and the everyday people are passed by. I believe that the intent is good, it makes me question where it will stop. Are they going to start archiving all Facebook accounts? What about the next big thing? And also, with an ever-growing mass of information, where is it all going to be stored? Since it is electronic, I am not worried about environmental implications, but do they just plan on constantly increasing the server size, or do they have some other plan?

Social Media in the Arab Spring

(Egypt influence network...click to see enlarged)

Without social media, the events of the past few months in the Middle East would likely have been very different. “We use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to tell the world,” one women in Cairo tweeted. University of Washington professor, Phillip N. Howard, wrote about the role of digital media in the recent uprisings in the Middle East. With so much going on (and that it was happening in a differnt time zone) made the issues especially time-sensitive and therefore a platform such as Twitter or Facebook, especially important. Another reason that such media was so useful was the limitations by the "governments" that would have prevented traditional media from being effective. The social media used during the revolts helped to organize what happened and to report it back tot those not involved.

@BronxZoosCobra

Last weekend a cobra at the Bronx Zoo in New York City went missing. While that alone proved to be news-wothy, equally as news-worthy was the Twitter account that was created by the snake soon after,@BronxZoosCobra. Since Monday, he (or she?) has racked up over 72,000 followers and its bio reads: "I'm an Egyptian cobra our on the town." The tweets are all of the lighthearted nature and it has been tweeting with celebrities such as Charlie Sheen and Steve Martin. What is most fascinating is not that the cobra is tweeting but that is it news-worthy. (I suppose if newspapers were not currently online - allowing for unlimited publication - such information would probably not take up space in a print issue.) The New York Times website even has a section,Twitter Patter, on which they profile New York tweeters. 

U.S. State Department Promotes Social Media For Pro-Democracy Activists

The Huffington Post reported that the U.S. State Department is developing a cell phone "panic button" for pro-democracy activists as part of its U.S. Technology Initiative, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's push to expand Internet freedoms. This "panic button" is targeted towards pro-democracy campaigners, so that when their cell phones get confiscated by police, they'll be able to hit the "panic button," which is a special app that will both wipe out the phone's address book and emit emergency alerts to other activists. This is just one example of many that the State Department is "promoting to equip pro-democracy activists in countries ranging from the Middle East to China with tools to fight back against repressive governments" (Quinn). The "panic button" tool was inspired by the experience of pro-democracy protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square in February, an event that emphasized the importance of cell phones in today's grassroots political movements. In this way, the "panic button" and secure text message services (another tool the State Department is developing) will protect data and databases.

This technology initiative was inspired by the crucial role that many online resources like Twitter and Facebook have played in fueling pro-democracy movements in Iran, Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere. The U.S. has budgeted about $50 million since 2008 to promote new technologies for social activists, "focusing both on 'circumvention' technology to help them work around government-imposed firewalls and on new strategies to protect their own communications and data from government intrusion" (Quinn). Furthermore, the U.S. has funded training for around 5,000 activists around the world, aiming to teach them how to use these new technologies. At one of these trainings in Beirut, one of the computers of a Tunisian activist was found to be infected with "key-logging" software that could communicate whatever he was typing to security agents.

The United States first began to publicly leverage new Internet technologies in 2009, when it asked Twitter to "delay a planned upgrade that would have cut service to Iranians who were organizing mass protests over disputed elections" (Quinn). Since then, the State Department has regarded new media technologies, especially social media, as a key part of its global strategy--it launched its own Twitter feeds in Arabic, Farsi, and Hindi, and also negotiated with China over the censorship of Google results.

Some U.S. lawmakers have criticized the Department for not doing enough to promote new media technology, but the State Department affirms that they are now going "full speed ahead to get the money out the door" (Posner, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor). The U.S. has helped to fund the development of a dozen new circumvention technologies, and there are more in the works, since activists are constantly coming up against different forms of censorship.

Posner stated that it is important to note, however, that these new technologies also carry some risks: "secure on-line tools useful for underground pro-democracy activists might also be useful for drug cartels or terrorist cells, raising new law enforcement and national security issues that need to be resolved" (Quinn). The goal of this technology is to protect people who are, in a peaceful manner, working for human rights, but what happens when this same technology falls into the wrong hands? The rapid advances of modern technology demonstrate how useful such tools can be--but also serves as a reminder that a tool is only as effective as its wielder.

The Obama administration announced on March the 16^th they were working on a “privacy bill of right”, which aim is to control what data of internet users can be used or sell by the main internet companies. It is a sensitive subject because it matches the right of the consumer against the rights of the private companies. The two positions were summed up in the media as a competition between the European and the American model. Especially because at the same time, the European Commissaire Viviane Reding delivered a speech about the protection of private datas in the Union. Not surprisingly, many liberal media took position in favor of “the European Model” (the Huffington Post, the New York Times) whereas conservative media seem more circumspect (Fow News).

What I found really interesting is the comparison between the American coverage and the European coverage of the same subject. In Europe, everyone, from every political party, agree on the importance of having a law to guarantee the protection on the private data. The only fear is that the American companies such as google or facebook, won’t allow it.

New media, Old story

The recent story of Alexandra Wallace, a political science major from UCLA who published a video on youtube to explain she expects Asian student to adopt “American manners”, was covered by all mainstream media (The Washington Post, MSNBC…). What is surprising is that all of them, except for the New York Times, did not use that story to talk about the danger of the digital footprint people can leave on the internet. Instead, they focused on the fact that she was not expelled from school, because she was protected by the first amendment, and on racism toward Asian American.

I think this story is a perfect illustration of how the old media react to what happens in the new media such as youtube: they do not really know what to do with those news and what the issues can be so everything that happens online is linked to the right of expression. They do not even know where to classify them: that story can be found in the US section of the New York Times and in the the business section of the Washington Post and MSNBC.

Is there a new Tech Bubble waiting to Burst?

With all of the money from banks pouring into technology funds, and wealthy clients trying to get a piece of the start-up pie, some investors with memories of the dot-com burst a decade ago are wondering if this sudden surge in investments foreshadows another danger for the industry. Valuations are soaring: "Investments in Facebook and Zynga have more than quintupled the implied worth of each company in the last two years. The social shopping site Groupon is said to be considering an initial public offering that would value the company at $25 billion. Less than a year ago, the company was valued at $1.4 billion" (Rusli and Kopytoff). The New York Times' article recounts many of the investment busts from 1999 and 2000. What is frightening, however, is that there is even more money flooding the market today than there was during the dot-com bubble. The Huffington Post and SFGate reported that San Francisco technology jobs are climbing near the level of the dot-com peak and may soon surpass the dot-com era peak. Another warning sign? It's too soon to tell.

But there are some important differences between the turn-of-the-century dot-com boom and now. First of all, the market is not supersaturated with offerings; in 1999, there were "308 technology I.P.O.’s, making up about half of that year’s offerings" (Morgan Stanley data) and "In 2010, there were just 20 technology I.P.O.’s" (Thomson Reuters data). Furthermore, most of the start-ups that have investors excited are ones that have real businesses producing fast-growing revenue. "Groupon, which has been profitable since June 2009, is on track to take in billions in revenue this year" (Rusli and Kopytoff). As a result, since there is such a small elite group making up this new boom, some investors say that the potential fallout if things go badly is limited. But, as cash continues to pile up, investors fear that all this money cannot be put to work responsibly. "With only a few perceived 'winners,' some investors must be choosing losers or paying too much" (Rusli and Kopytoff).

It is interesting to note that most of these investments are going towards social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which is a key difference between the Internet world of today vs. ten years ago. Most of the dot-com era investments were for delivery websites or sites that were seen as what JPMorgan Chase then dubbed "essential resources to consumers." (In 1999, Chase Capital Partners invested in Kozmo.com--an online delivery service that raised hundreds of millions in venture funding. "At its height, the company’s sprawling network of orange bike messengers employed more than a thousand people. Less than two years later, it ceased operations" (Rusli and Kopytoff).)

Are today's investors taking advantage of people's every day social lives? When you log in to Facebook, you're trying to keep in touch with friends and get some news from statuses and posted links; but for Facebook, every time you login, you're making the company more money by keeping up their number of users and therefore their ad revenue. Instead of users consuming actual products or services like the dot-coms of ten years ago, today's users are building on their existing relationships--and social networking sites are making money from that. What if you stopped logging in to Facebook to turn to even newer forms of social networking that lie in our future, or even to revert to older forms like emails? Would today's technology growth turn out to be simply a passing trend, a soon-to-pop bubble, a castle built on an ever-shifting foundation?

So will we be spared another burst bubble? Is today's technology sector truly different than that of the dot-com era? Has the ever evolving relationship between society and technology finally solidified sufficiently to allow for responsible investing? We shall wait and see.

Social Networks and Elections: What To Consider for 2012 and Beyond

The New York Times wrote about a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center on the role of social networks and the internet during the 2010 election cycle. According to the survey's findings, "one in five adults who use the Internet, including a growing number of older, conservative Republicans, turned to social networks to get or share information about the midterm elections last year" (Preston). In addition, the study showed that 53% of Internet users went online to engage in a campaign-related activity (watching a political video, fact checking a political claim, or sharing and discussing information).

The results of this survey emphasize the important role that social networks like Twitter and Facebook, and new media technology in general, are going to play in the 2012 Presidential Campaign (Aaron Smith, Pew Center). It is often said that part of the reason President Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign was so successful is because it used social media in new and innovative ways to garner support around the country.

Candidates are learning from 2008's best practices, however, and as another study from the Pew Research Center entitled "22% of online Americans used social networking or Twitter for politics in 2010 campaign" points out, "Republicans, who lagged behind Democrats in the 2008 campaign in some key aspects of social media use, caught up to Democrats in the midterm election cycle" (Smith). Furthermore, these political social media users voted for Republican congressional candidates over Democratic candidates by a 45%-41% margin, and Republicans' enthusiasm for using social media matched that of Democrats. Think back to the political organizing success of the Tea Party Movement during the 2010 election cycle, due in large part to social media. Therefore, the midterms demonstrated the potential and power of these online tools--two thirds of Republican and Democratic candidates used them for the first time in 2010. All of a sudden, "The notion that the Internet was owned by liberals, owned by the left in the wake of the Obama victory, has been proven false" (Patrick Ruffini, Republican political online strategist).

More and more people are turning to these new media sources for their information, but what is the quality of that information? 61% of adults surveyed agreed that the Internet exposed them to a wider range of political views than they might get from traditional news sources, but they expressed concerns about "the quality and value of the information they were finding" (Preston). What is more troubling is that 56% of Internet users find it difficult to differentiate between true information and false information on the Internet.

Alan Rosenblatt (Center for American Progress Action Fund) explains that this lack of trust is what drives people to use social networking sites: that is where they get information and opinions from trusted friends. But, if a person is getting their political information only from their circle of trusted friends, it is likely that these friends already share the same views as this person. By extension, if a person relies solely on social networking sites for their information, are they really getting a wide range of political views?

The major role that new media and social networking sites have played in elections thus far, combined with the potentially viral dissemination of true or false information on the Internet, mean that the 2012 elections--particularly the Presidential race--will be exciting, frustrating, and most of all, unpredictable.

Out with the Old, and in with the NEWER New Media

Technology is constantly trying to advance the way we do things by making the process easier and quicker. Apparently, America's youth no longer has the patience to share their thoughts by sitting and writing a lengthy blogpost; instead they turn to Twitter and Facebook to share their thoughts via length-restricted statuses and tweets.

This New York Times article "Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites like Twitter" explains, "Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch with friends and family" (Kopytoff). The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging amongst children ages 12-17 fell by half so that now only 14% of that age group who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.

Now, people feel they can share their life in a quicker and easier fashion through these other platforms, and they're getting more hits this way as well. The NYT article goes on to explain that some bloggers are using Facebook and Twitter to help promote their blogposts to a wider audience, so that instead of being competitors, blogs and social networking sites are actually complementary.

Interestingly, however, although the youth demographic is losing interest in blogging, the older generations are sticking with it. "Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier, the Pew survey found. Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points, to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points, to 8 percent" (Kopytoff).

What accounts for the growing decline of blogging amongst today's youth? Is it laziness, boredom, lack of free time, short attention spans? If today's youth no longer want to take the time to write blogposts (nor, presumably, to sit down and read others' blogposts) because they would much rather have their news synthesized in 140 characters, what does that mean for the future of other more traditional news sources? And if today's youth is losing its interest in longer, nuanced prose, what does this mean for the future of civic engagement and the democratic process?

Blogs, Tweets, and YouTube Videos are all about Japan

From March 14-18, 2011 the earthquake in Japan and the aftermath was the number one topic on blogs, Twitter, and YouTube, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. This is the second time that one story has dominated in these three new media platforms; the first story to do this was the unrest that followed the Iranian elections in June 2009. According to the Pew's New Media Index, 64% of news links on blogs, 32% of news links on Twitter, and all of the top 20 videos on YouTube were about the earthquake in Japan. What's interesting about these findings, as well as the article that accompanies them, is that it discusses how each social media platform functions using different techniques. Blogs were able to pull on the emotional content of the event, Twitter kept followers updated about headlines and new events as they happened, and YouTube provided the dramatic video footage that allowed a viewer to see what the tsunami looked like as it barreled into Japan's coast. In order for a story to be so widely reported on across all three platforms it must possess elements that each new media outlet can build on and intrigue readers, followers, and viewers with. The fact that this has only happened once before speaks to the unique combination of qualities that a story must possess in order to dominate all three outlets.

Cameroon Bans Twitter SMS until further notice

This article was posted on Passport, a blog run by Foreign Policy Magazine, and it takes a very clear stance on the Cameroonian’s government decision to ban Twitter Mobile SMS posts. Scholars and news media are frequently citing the critical role that Twitter played in facilitating the Orange and Iranian Revolutions and, even more recently, in the ongoing protests in Egypt. This story provided an interesting case study for governments that wish to quell homegrown revolutions and raised questions about the new form of online activism. In the end, through the use of quotations, it argued that banning SMS Twitter will be an ineffective way of quieting protestors or government critics.
While this article did not give a lot of background information on Twitter’s revolutionary capacity, it cited a blogger, Dibussi Tande, from Cameroon, who described the use of SMS Twitter updates in the Tunisia protests. Tande’s blog won the 2008 Black Weblog Awards for Best International Blog. It also cites Evgeny Morozov, author of The Dark Side of Internet Freedom: The New Delusion, to argues against the Cameroonian government’s adoption of this ill-conceived policy. While I appreciated the research that went into this brief Passport post, I think it would have been nice for the Foreign Policy editors to take more a clear position on the Cameroonian government’s decision to block mobile twitter.

Social Media is Just Part of the Story

From Tunisia to Egypt to Libya, uprisings in the Arab World are popping up and surprising both journalists and government officials. Protesters are making use of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to send out messages, meet up and garner support. Social media is now becoming a metric that news outlets use to tell the story about uprisings and potential protests across these countries. While some news organizations like Al Jazeera use numbers of tweets to measure what's going on, The New York Times introduced an interesting platform that uses Twitter updates as one tool to help tell the whole story. Rather than simply plotting how many people on Twitter tag Syria or Libya, The Times offers online readers a country by country look at the "Arab World Uprisings". For Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, the site displays the most recent news stories, twitter updates, and information about who is in power and when they took power. While the site does not fully integrate detailed background information, or attempt to draw too many connections about what's going on and why, it does recognize that there is more to the story than who is tweeting and how many times a day. I applaud The New York Times for acknowledging the importance of social media in telling these stories while also not distilling the uprisings to just a story of social media. The immediacy of social media allows for up-to-date information, but the links to previous articles allow the viewer to learn and experience more than the brief summaries that tweets provide. It will be interesting to see how news media continue to try to make use of social media to help tell stories that are more complex than 140 characters allows.

How to Announce Your Presidential Exploratory Committee

As the 2012 election season commences top Republican contenders for the presidential candidacy announce the first step of their campaigns: a presidential exploratory committee. How you announce it may not mean all that much, but what's interesting is that this past week former Minnesota Governor, Tim Pawlenty, chose Facebook as the platform to announce his presidential exploratory committee. There was little doubt that Pawlenty would run for the Republican nomination and many consider him a top-contender. However, rather than holding a news conference to announce the formation of his presidential exploratory committee, like Newt Gingrich, another Republican contender for the nomination, Pawlenty chose to use social media to make the announcement. The video sets Pawlenty's words to "grow jobs" and "limit government spending" to inspirational music, saying that he offers the chance for America to have a "brighter future". Social media allows Pawlenty to directly reach out to his base immediately by posting the video on Facebook. The video also allows for greater control over the message that Pawlenty wants to convey. The exploratory presidential committee is just one of the first steps of a presidential run, but Pawlenty is choosing to capitalize on social media's ability to reach out to a lot of people in a direct and timely manner. President Obama's use of social media in 2008 dramatically changed how campaigns are run, and it will be interesting to see how candidates during 2012 continue to make use social media and rely on its pervasiveness within society.

Crowley Tweets and Resigns

While the Japan crisis and the situation in the Middle East have been monopolizing the news media, most Foreign Policy Magazine and the New York Times also ran a story about Philip Crowley’s twitter comments on these current events. Crowley, the State Department spokesman, posted “we’ve been watching a hopeful #tsunami sweep across the Middle East. Now we’re seeing a tsunami of a different kind sweep across Japan” to his twitter account and then, after objections were raised about its sensitivity to tsunami survivors, he deleted it.
I was first interested in this story because it seemed like one of the first times a public official was lambasted for an inappropriate tweet. Most public officials that have a twitter account often have very polished, politically correct tweets that rarely express genuine opinion. I think this story was being used to draw more attention to Crowley comments about the detainment of Bradley Manning, the soldier who is charged with leaking confidential U.S. documents to WikiLeaks. When framing this story, both newspapers seems to be focusing on the scandal/ conflict aspect, since “scandals... have become the stuff of news in the new media age," (Cohen, 95). In a follow up story, after Crowley resigned, the New York Times also reported that “Crowley had a rocky tenure at the State Department” and “[failed] to develop close tie to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton”. Both articles cited qualified sources, like BCC and State Department Officials, yet did not take a stance on whether Crowley’s departure was justified.

The Growth of the Mobile Market and What this means for Social Media

Microsoft came out with an "infographic" offering some fascinating statistics on the mobile market. Data included the number of people who have smart phones, what demographic is the most active in mobile socialization, and more.

As the charts show, the size of the world's mobile market is 4 billion, and of that, 1.08 billion are smartphones and 3.05 are SMS enabled. Microsoft also claims that by 2014, mobile internet should take over desktop internet usage! 91% of mobile internet access is used for socializing on sites like Twitter and Facebook, compared to only 79% on desktops. Furthermore, over 1/3 of Facebook's 600 million users choose to use Facebook mobile; of Twitter's 165 million users, 50% of them use Twitter mobile. A whopping 200+ million views on YouTube occur on mobile devices every day. And, to my surprise, women between the ages of 35-54 are the most active group in mobile socialization.

So what does this mean for the future of social media? As the mobile market keeps expanding, these statistics indicate that it is likely social media will rise with it. In addition, the mobile market and social media have changed the fabric of society: today's society is geared heavily towards instant gratification. Everyone constantly has their cell phones with them, which means that they are able to communicate instantaneously, as well as update others on what they're doing instantaneously. In addition, they're able to receive their news instantaneously and post their own news selections to their Twitters or Facebooks.

The mobile market and social media have changed the way that society works. For example, even grocery shopping isn't the same; people can order their groceries from their phones and have them delivered to their front door. As the infographic shows, mobile tags can serve up coupons that can be redeemed instantaneously in store, and 29% of mobile users are open to scanning a mobile tag to get coupons. Grocery shopping is no longer just a boring activity; it has become yet another social activity. Today, you can post your grocery purchases to Facebook, thereby sharing more information about yourself and your food preferences to your friends. You could also share which coupons you're using to help friends save money. Mobile phones and social media are making it possible to share even the most mundane aspects of your life with your social network.

Another example: mobile phones and social media have changed parenting -- which is one guess as to why women between the ages of 35-54 are the most active group in mobile socialization. Thanks to technology, mothers can text their children, follow them on Twitter, check out their Facebooks, and more in order to keep tabs on them.

What does all of this virtual interaction mean for the society of the future? Although consumer culture may thrive with these technological advances, what will happen to interpersonal interactions? Will there be lasting repercussions from the shift away from in-person conversations, where gauging body language, eye contact, tone of voice, etc. is vital? Today, you can get a fairly detailed view of somebody else's life by looking through their Facebook page; you can see their photos with other friends, read status updates on what they're doing and feeling, and see what television show they're watching -- all without having to speak a word to that person. Humans have evolved biologically to feel rewarded by tangible interactions with other humans -- as we move towards a deeper integration of technology (especially social media) with society, will we therefore become somehow less human?

Looking for a buzz

Social media are a new market for advertisers. And they can be creative enough to frighten journalists and bloggers. The Huffington Post and the Associated Press want their audience to be aware of that phenomenon, so they report the news using general terms and examples that everyone can understand such as the Charlie Sheen example. This article is actually a perfect example in itself of what it is talking about: people read “Charlie Sheen” and think they are going to read celebrity news whereas the article is in fact perfectly serious. It illustrates how people think they are reading about Charlie Sheen when they follow him on Tweeter, whereas they are reading advertisement.

The specialized press in which the reader can find a method to take advantage of that new trend, confirms the theory that social endorsement is a more efficient way to advertise.

Online school

The part Social media could play in education is a much debated matter. This revolution in education is still to be made, so many opposite points of view are expressed in the news. The audience supposedly interested by that question is also really diverse: teachers, parents, students, politicians etc.…

That diversity can be found in the different articles covering that kind of story: they all adopt a different point of view, regarding what audience they target. But it also appear that no one knows much about the subject. For example, it is really interesting to see that the same article, written for Reuters was published without any transformation by many news websites all over English speaking country such as the Chicago Tribune in the US, Abs Cbn in the Philippines or in Europe.

Still, using social media for educational purposes is not an idea everyone agrees on. When articles are written for a general audience, they are simplified, as we can see in this more skeptic Canadian article. Regarding social media, the general trend seems to be “wait and see”: the online version of the magazine Wired found a really interesting way of dealing with that, creating a wiki article that everyone can update about social media in school. Thanks to that strategy, the new are always new.

Debating free speech on YouTube

This New York Times article discusses YouTube’s policy towards videos that insight terrorist actions of violence. This story focuses on the openness of the internet, especially in user-generated sites like YouTube, and how that impacts government and google’s attempts to regulate it. In particular, Anwar al-Awlaki, a militant American-born cleric, has posted hundred of hours of YouTube videos promoting “calls to jihad” which can be seen “as an important instigator of terrorism”. These videos have earned him the title of “the online Osama bin Laden”. To me, it seems like this issue would fall under the broad category of “War on Terror” coverage. As a news topics, this receives substantial coverage in the media.
This story grabbed my attention because I have always been a fan of the way user-generate sites allow anyone with internet access to express their opinions. However, I thought the article did a good job of explaining Congress’ previous struggles with limiting al-Awlaki’s calls for terrorism.
In terms of the structure, Scott Shane frames this article as a conflict between new media, Congress, free speech policies and international security, by focusing on al-Awlaki’s video as a “case study” for YouTube’s community guidelines. He also makes it relevant to current events by connecting it to the House’s upcoming hearing on “the radicalization of American Muslims”. This article provided links directly to some of al-Awlaki’s videos, most of which have since been removed. This would allow the reader to view the content for themselves and determine if al-Awlaki’s message was dangerous and should be censored by a private company like YouTube. The article also interviews a variety of government officials who acknowledge the difficulty in monitoring YouTube and one democratic senator who believes all of al-Awlaki’s material should be removed. Ultimately, I thought the article did a good job of demonstrating both sides of the debate while remaining neutral on the position.

Measuring Revolutions in Tweets Per Minute

This past week Al Jazeera English launched a Twitter Dashboard. The site states that, "As uprisings turn to revolutions in the Middle East, Al Jazeera's New Media team releases a Twitter Dashboard that illustrates what is being tweeted about and where." In real-time the dashboard tracks which hashtags are the most popular, and it provides totals for tweets per day and tweets per minute for Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain with the expectation that one can track uprisings and political unrest through these numbers. While an interesting way to try to keep abreast of tweets and social media, the dashboard lacks context and background information to really serve a reader much value. This type of tool becomes a means of simplifying rather complex and intricate situations, like political uprisings in the Middle East, to internet chatter and hashtags. Twitter is an interesting platform to monitor and news can be spread this way, but I think media outlets need to be careful to cover the complexities of a story and not let the popularity of one social media site dominate coverage and speculation.