From a plain blog about politics: Ignore the Twitter News Cycle on Scandals

In the interest of tying the IRS scandal into as many aspect of this class as possible, here's a post wondering what the effects of twitter are on our approach to the scandal. We - or at least some - may over or underestimate its importance based on the slant given it by the narrative it contains.

This raises a question thatstudents who are thinking about looking at scandals historically might want to take into consideration: Do some scandals take off or die simply because of the nature of the media at a specific monet in time?

Busy night apparently

The Dish has complied a variety of posts on Twitter that followed last night drama in Massachusetts.

- #MITShooting.

Apart from the bombing itself, the big news will likely be the role social media - and the proliferation of smart phones - has played in breaking this case.
- Reddit: Find Boston Bombers.

NPR commented that the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics would have been solved much more quickly if a similar amount of images had been available at the time.

By the way - I find it troubling that two guys can effectively shut down a city.

Twitter calls itself the “free-speech wing of the free-speech party.”

This article details Twitter's efforts to retain its positon as perhaps the leading platform for free speech, including offensive speech. This puts the site on one side of an ongoing debate pitting free speech against hate speech.

Twitter has refused to comply with a French court's demand to reveal the identities of individuals who sent out a series of anti-Semitic tweets. This is in addition to unsucessful efforts to fight efforts to reveal the identities of ither users of the site:

Twitter has revealed user data in several cases after being forced to do so by U.S. courts, including personal data related to several users who were supporters of WikiLeaks, such as Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir and hacker Jacob Appelbaum. Twitter also handed over tweets by two members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, after being forced to do so by a court order, although it fought against both of these decisions — and also made the request for the Occupy supporter’s data public even though it was asked not to do so.

What makes these kinds of cases so difficult is that Twitter is a private corporation with a proprietary platform, and yet it is being used as a public communications vehicle around the world, and one whose free-speech aspects are becoming increasingly important. And while we may all agree that certain types of speech are offensive, the idea that governments or courts can force Twitter to reveal the identities of those users is troubling in the extreme.

While Facebook and to some extent Google are also being used in this kind of context, Twitter is unique in the sense that it explicitly allows people to use pseudonyms. Facebook has a firm policy on the use of “real” or verified names, and while Google somewhat grudgingly allowed users to add pseudonyms to their Google+ accounts after what some called the “nym wars,” the service is still designed primarily for “real” names. Twitter is one of the only communications platforms of its size and reach that freely allows users to be known by pseudonyms.

Recent stories involving Twitter

We finished 2305 with a quick look at the media and some attention to the general impact of social media. Here are three quick stories about Twitter:

- Death Wish: A Writer Finds Twitter Turning Toxic. A journalist explains why she terminated her Twitter account. The nature of the interchange it sets up doesn't appear to breed civil discourse: What is it about Twitter that brings out the worst in some people and makes it acceptable—almost mandatory—to be small-minded jerks? Those 140 characters don’t leave a lot of room for context. It’s almost as if brevity breeds idiocy. Even powerful business executives have fallen prey to reckless comments.


- White House #My2K Twitter hashtag enters "fiscal cliff" debate. The Obama White House is promoting discussions about the fiscal cliff on Twitter by promoting a hashtag to frame the debate. They also held a Town Hall on Twitter.

- Israel and Gaza Battle Twitter War Over Rocket Attacks. The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza didn't just involve rockets. Salvos were fired back and forth online.

Are reporters taking Twitter too seriously?

Brendan Nyhan takes campaign reporters to task for giving too much - or any - attention to superficial news events like the etch a sketch comment about Romney or the recent claim that his wife has never worked a day in her life. He is especially concerned that reporters pick up rumors sent via Twitter as being true without fact checking.

He says we are the silly season.

Perhaps all of this is fostered by technology that allows for messages to get out quickly and business models that depend on this speed - regardless of whether it is accurate.

What's the difference betwen Twitter and a magazine?

Plenty. In this TNR piece, the author shows how a Tweet from legal analysts Jeffery Toobin - that the individual mandate was doomed based on his analysis of the oral argument - conditioned the reactions of most other news outlets. A more measured response to the arguments just published in the New Yorker is getting less traction. This tells us something. Short superficial messages drown out longer thoughtful ones.

In 2301 we will be discussing the press soon. Technology matters. 

Sobriety Checkpoints Return

Just in time for the holiday weekend, Montgomery County will bring back sobriety checkpoints in order to combat drunk driving.

The checkpoints, which allowed police to stop random motorists and check to see if they were drunk without any actual evidence that they were in fact drunk (like driving erratically), were used quite often in the 1980s, but were challenged in the courts. They were argued to be illegal searches, in violation of the 4th Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed in 1990 (Michigan v. Sitz), the greater interest provided by discouraging drunk driving outweighed the individual right to be free from unreasonable searches, but many state argued that these searches violated their constitutions, including the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Montgomery County officials claim that their's is not an unconstitutional program because they will only test drivers who commit traffic violations ( I have no idea if that will in fact prove constitutional if challenged -- is commiting a traffic violation probably cause that one is drunk?).

It will be a no refusal program, meaning that you can be punished for refusing to submit to a sobriety test.

For background:
- Opinion.
- Anatomy of a DWI "no refusal weekend."
- Austin DWI Attorney.
- Texas Senate Bill 298. (news item on the bill)
- State Sobriety Checkpoint Laws.
- Checkpoints on Twitter.

This applies to both 2301 and 2302. It involves how the constitution helps define the relationship between government and the individual, but it does so in a very problematic area, one where we might in fact want some governmental intervention. No one wants to share the road with drunk drivers. Its a perfect illustration of the balancing act the courts have to engage in when they consider the relative merits of individual liberty and the greater interests of society.

2302s might want to pay attention to the legislation linked to above -- which would have allowed expanded use of checkpoints has it not died in committee. You might also want to take a look at the Supreme Court case above.

PS: Can we really tell who is drunk?

Twitter Effect Oversold?

George Friedman is not jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. He argues that the revolution in Iraq appears to have stalled partly due to its support not branching out beyond the "twittering classes." Western commentators may have misread the level of support that existed on the ground because the only voices they were hearing were those who used the technology:

The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.

Twitter Comes of Age?

Andrew Sullivan has several posts (here, here, here, and here, for a few) lauding the role twitter has played in not only providing information about the post-election violence in Iran but organizing protests.

Every new technology needs its opportunity to demonstrate its relevance. This seems to be twitter's moment.

Elections and Legitimacy

Elections, as we argue in 2301, are devices which among other things connect the general population with the law, thereby lending it legitimacy. But if an election seems to have been fraudulent, the opposite can occur. This is especially true if the fraud seems obvious, and a large percentage of the population agrees. The governing system then loses legitimacy, society crumbles and either government does something to reestablish legitimacy or removes the pretense and just clamps down on the population.

This may help explain the results of the recent election in Iran. Its president was reelected by a comfortable margin, a result which seems improbable based on popular opinion. Fraud is widely suspected. Protests have erupted, and some suspect a coup is in the works.

Andrew Sullivan claims that this story is only breaking because the blogosphere is pushing it, not the mainstream media. Even Twitter helped.

Twitter is not Longer Cool...

...now that Joe Barton, and everyone else in Congress, is on it.

I admit, I tried to be Twitter hip. I even wrote a blog about how Twitter could be a useful political tool under the notion that hearing voters twitter a debate could provide unique, real-time insights into their behavior and thinking.

But I’m giving it up. I know I’ll get roasted for being anti-tech. But, what I really am is pro meaningful communication. And somewhere along the Internet highway we fell under the spell that more communication is better communication. Sometimes more communication is just noise.

Awesome quote.

Twitter

It's the latest web sensation.

You can let the entire world know what you are doing right now . . . I mean now . . . no now.

If you can make them care, but maybe they do.