Social media in government: 19-25 January 2015

In Switzerland @Davos participants took to Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and YouTube, to share hashtags, images, opinions and facts. At the same time, social networks themselves were under fire @wef for disrupting European tech and innovation. 

Meanwhile Edelman released its annual global Trust Barometer. Out of those surveyed, an estimated 48% trust the news and information they get from social media.

In Kenya, trust in the government is down after social media showed government officials teargassing young students trying to protect their playground from an alleged land grab. Then the Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Information, Communication and Technology @FOMatiangi claimed that, while the Government must respect freedom of speech, some Kenyans use social media to assassinate the character of the government. A Kenyan newspaper followed up with the claim that, while it is true social media is used to incite hatred and tribal animosity over "land matters, drug abuse, unemployment, food insecurity, crime, poor infrastructure, social inequality and lack of equity in national resource allocation," the punishment for the worst offenders - the Members of Parliament and other Kenyan politicians - is far less severe than for average Kenyan citizens.

Current Nigerian leaders are backtracking after a “Blackberry Messenger (BBM) statement [across his social media accounts] by Deji Adeyanju, an official in the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, said  ‘[potential Presidential opponent] Buhari can never be President of Nigeria. Quote me any day any time. Instead of Buhari to become President of Nigeria, Nigeria would rather break. A military coup will even be allowed than for Buhari to become the president of a democratic Nigeria quote me any day, any time...” A spokesperson for the current Nigerian President's Adminstration noted, “we categorically deny that this statement was ever made by anyone in this office" and explained that Mr. Adeyanju oversees his own personal social media accounts and is responsible for the content that these contain.

Human Rights Watch published a 76-page report on media freedom (or rather the lack thereof) in Ethiopia. A video publicising the issues highlights the Zone 9 bloggers currently in exile or in prison due to sweeping anti-terrorism legislation that cripples Ethiopian free speech.

The UK is the "most transparent" government in the world according to a study looking at public access to official data. The report notes that public servants in the UK now include several hundred social media managers.

Does the UK's transparency make a difference? To explore that, a London a film project is showcasing the reality of housing in the UK's capital. In other news, how good is the UK Government's engagement? An official UK e-petition on waivers and music venues got 42 000 signatures and then a cut-and-paste Government response that suggests limited government interest in music.

British political social media is buzzing after the Government's decision to fly flags at half-mast following the death of the conservative King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

At a United Nations General Assembly on rising anti-Semitism, French authorities called for "a legal framework so the Internet platforms, the large companies managing social networking, so that they're called upon to act responsibly." "There are hate videos, calls for death, propaganda that has not been responded to, and we [through regulating these platforms] need to respond," explained Harlem Desir, French state secretary for European affairs.

Greeks visited the polls Sunday for an early general election. The top hashtag for real-time election news was #ekloges2015.

Europe has levelled more sanctions against Russia following further attacks in Southeast Ukraine. Sergei Markov, director of the Moscow-based Institute of Political Studies, describes himself as an advisor to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Markov posted to his Facebook wall that, even with further incursions, the USA and the EU will “gradually lift all sanctions … in exchange for not taking Kiev”.

Turkish authorities continue to ask Twitter to block the account of the newspaper posting tweets containing leaked government documents suggesting the government is supplying Syrian fighters with arms. The Turkish government is not near as proactive in chasing social media accounts run by international terrorist groups such as ISIS. Turkish leaders are also attempting to shut down the anonymous whistleblower accounts run by @fuatavnifuat. This week the Gölbaşı Public Prosecutor's Office launched an investigation into the accounts and the Gölbaşı Penal Court of Peace decided to block both the Twitter and the Facebook account of Fuat Avni, who, despite his or her anonymity, seems particularly well-informed when it comes to the current Administration's plans, having let the public know in advance about planned crackdowns on specific Turkish media.

A review of the United Arab Emirates in social media is out. The UAE Government has regularly emphasised the importance of engaging with citizens via social media. Expect more engagement at the UAE's International Government Communication Forum 2015 (#igcf15), which will host a fully-staffed social media station to monitor and respond to opinions and comments. Ali Jaber, Group TV Director at MBC and Dean of Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Communication at AUD, stated, “we see online and social media play the biggest role in keeping pace with global and regional events, and become influential players in shaping public opinion. The need to use these means of communication to create areas of interaction between governments and citizens is clearly evident if we are to start a dialogue that contributes to achieving harmony between peoples and governments in order to assure a better and safer future.”

Saudi Arabia postponed the flogging of blogger Raif Badawi for the second week running. Badawi is accused of "insulting Islam" via his online writing. 

The Israeli Government and #StandWithUs, an Israeli education and advocacy group, have agreed to partner in a new "Social Media Ambassadors' programme" designed to portray the reality of Israel through those who visit and live in the country.

Indian officials want social networks to host servers in India to "keep tabs on malicious and dangerous content." The Indian Government is also hoping to procure a national social analytics platform "MyGov" to monitor the pulse of Indians online. At the local level in UP, police have developed two mobile apps, the ‘UP Police Lost Article Report App’ and the ‘Institutional Security App — Tatpar.' The 'lost articles app' allows citizens to file a missing object via their mobile phones. The 'Security app' allows citizens to demand immediate police assistance by pushing a button on their phone. The police in UP are also setting up a social media monitoring lab to watch for inflammatory content online that might incite violence between different ethnic or religious groups in the region.

The Vietnamese Prime Minister continues to call on officials not to block social media but to use it to "give correct and timely information to guide opinion. Regardless of what is being said on the Internet, people will believe when there is official information from the government.”

Prime Minister Hun Sen just celebrated his 30th year in power in Cambodia. Yet his administration is losing ground online to people like Thy Sovantha, 19, a student activist whose Facebook page has nearly 500,000 likes. In a post shared more than 24,000 times, Sovantha accused a policeman of being the the unknown assassin that killed Cambodian businessman Ung Meng Cheu in November 2014. Cheu's murder was filmed in a video that went viral on Facebook and WhatsApp. “Police can’t handle crimes as they did before,” Sovantha noted. “They have to work very carefully because people . . . have Facebook to follow news.” Phnom Penh’s police chief denied the accusation that one of his policemen was the killer and accused social media of spreading "false information."

Indonesian entrepreneur Enda Nasution is trying to build a social government. He is a co-founder of Sebangsa, or Same Nation, a platform not unlike Facebook that is designed to provide public services and increase engagement between Indonesian government and citizens.

Japanese and supporters across the globe both online and offline, including many Muslims in the Middle East, are demanding that ISIS release Japanese hostages Kenji Goto Jogo and Haruna Yukawa. Goto is a freelance journalist while Yukawa listed chief executive of “Private Military Company” as his occupation on a Facebook page believed to belong to him. As of this writing, Yukawa is believed to be dead as photos released by ISIS in social media show Goto holding a photo of his slain countryman with a plea that his life be exchanged for an al Qaeda female suicide bomber, Sajida al Rishawi, captured in 2005 in Jordan.

The Labor party in Queensland is leading in social media campaigning, according to local researchers. The Labor party has shared five times as many election related social media posts as the incumbent Liberal National Party. 

Yvette Berry thanked supporters via a post to social media after she became the second person in the history of Australian politics to be given a ministerial portfolio that covers LGBTI Equality. 

Canadian students used social media (Google Plus, Twitter, and Facebook) this week to inform the Goverment that #mytimehasvalue. The Canadian Association of Registered Graphic Designers (RGD) asked Canadian graphic designers to boycott the Canadian Heritage ministry's competition to find a logo for Canada's upcoming 150th birthday in 2017.

In the USA, media is still covering the CENTCOM hack. The US General Services Administration (GSA) held a webinar this week entitled “How Government Can Prepare for and Respond to Social Media Hacks.” Yet the Department of Defence noted it would not change its social media policy despite the hack.

The US President's annual State of the Union address got a lot of social media coverage before, during, and after the speech itself. The speech drove massive Facebook traffic to videos about the speech, posted by the White House and Congress. The event was "a watershed in the effective use of Facebook video and broadcast integrations by news media, the White House and members of Congress," according to Facebook.

In the US state of South Carolina, the state government is aiming to ban social media use by state employees. An official notice informed employees that as of this summer, "Unless specifically required by the agency to perform a job function, you may not use social media, including but not limited to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, while on duty or through the use of state resources or equipment."

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa announced a site where users could sign up to receive notifications of when the Ecuadorian government is being "smeared" in social media. "If you know the identity of who is insulting, smearing, we will put them in the (weekly report) link or show them on networks in order to see if, when outed, the insulting stops," Correa said. The site is called Somos+.

Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner posted a public letter to her Twitter account questioning the alleged suicide of a public prosecutor investigating one of the country's most horrific hate crimes. Prosecutor Alberto Nisman was looking into documents suggesting that the Argentinian government hoped to strike a deal with the Iranian government to release eight Iranians charged in the attack. President Fernández de Kirchner suggested that the Prosecutor was killed to make her Government look guilty. 

For more, follow @Linda_Margaret on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

Social media in government: 12 January to 18 January

Hashtags #JesuisNigerian and #BokoHaramKilled2000People attracted less attention than #JesuisCharlie. However, in the end social media did respond to images, released by Amnesty International, of the Boko Haram massacre of over 2000 Nigerian civilians the same day that terrorists killed 17 people in France. Ironically, Nigerian politicians, some of whom joined the #JesuisCharlie on Twitter, failed to mention the carnage in their own country. Meanwhile ISIS used the Charlie Hebdo social media buzz to encourage others to #FightForHim by acting as "city wolves" and committing further acts of terror.

While the latest edition of Charlie Hebdo sold out, the controversial cover featuring a sad Prophet Mohammed carrying a sign that says "Je suis Charlie" under the heading "All is forgiven" elicited both praise and fury in social networks. The Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov called for a demonstration against Charlie Hebdo via his popular instagram account. He captioned a picture of himself with the following, "We sincerely love the Prophet Muhammad! We have to pray, live, raise children, work for the sake of Allah! Today, some people without kith or kin, spiritual and moral values are trying to offend the honour of the Prophet. They will never succeed in it!"

Turkey continues to demand that social networks filter posts of documents that might provide evidence that the Turkish government is sharing arms with militant groups in Syria. Twitter has agreed to filter specific posts but refused to ban entire accounts that have supposedly posted the damning documents. Facebook has ignored the government so far. 

The Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet decided to go against the national grain and republish the Charlie Hebdo cover in a solidarity move. The paper's editor-in-chief Utku Cakirozer explained the decision on Twitter.

In Afghanistan, an online tool called SadRoz  ("100 days" in Dari) tracks how well the administration of President Ashraf Ghani fulfils election promises. Afghans log-in via Twitter and Facebook to share how well the government is performing in their region.

Ghanaian politicians are slugging it out on social media. The current administration has responded to oppositions' allegations of fraudulent spending by posting photographs of successfully-funded government projects to social media.

With the help of partner countries, Somalia has successfully closed down 20 Twitter accounts that falsely claimed to represent national government figures.

Libyan social media circulated images of men with machine guns claiming links to ISIS and threatening shop owners in Tripoli that sold women's lingerie and make-up.  In response, the Libyan government is asking for international help in addressing domestic terrorism.

The liberal Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was to receive the second instalment of 1000 lashes Friday for his online writing, but these were postponed.

Last Sunday, the UAE launched the National Programme for Government Communication (NPGC) to address national priorities and concerns. The strategy will incorporate traditional and social media to better educate the UAE community on key issues over the next seven years.

The Pakistani activist Mohammad Jibran Nasir is leading a social media campaign to #ReclaimYourMosques. He was angered by a leading local cleric's apologist approach to the Peshawar attack in which Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan killed 130 school children. The apologist cleric has not been arrested or detained by Pakistani authorities.

The Chinese government has closed 50 websites and social media accounts this week for "publishing news without a permit." In addition, Chinese authorities plan to make netizens register for social media accounts with their real names.

Meanwhile Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Tan Dung admitted,"It's impossible for us to ban [social media]." Instead, he encouraged his government to use social media to "provide the public with official and accurate information in a timely manner on social media."

Australia plans to lift laws demanding a political advertising blackout three days prior to any election. Social media allows such laws to be circumvented; thus the laws seem a bit out of date.

The Twitter and YouTube accounts of the U.S. military Central Command (CENTCOM) were hacked by ISIS or ISIS sympathisers Monday during a cyber-security speech by President Obama. This has spurred a lot of discussion about the importance of securing social networking accounts of federal agencies and employees. The hacktivist group Anonymous stepped in to help find the ISIS culprits, tweeting "We've traced the hacker who infiltrated @CENTCOM to somewhere in the State of Maryland. @FBI, you're welcome." Meanwhile the ominous social media posts of a would-be terrorist helped local law enforcement apprehend the man before he could carry out any attacks.

A social media video campaign aims to collect 440 one-minute videos (as many minutes as there are in a day) from Cubans that want to see change in their government. Find the video and related content under the hashtag #yotambienexijo.

The Government of Trinidad and Tobago is monitoring the opinion of citizens in social media on everything from holiday billboards to economic policy to collect feedback that can be used to improve the Government's policy and communication efforts. 

Finally the UK is looking into how British women use social media to recruit other British women to participate in ISIS attacks and propaganda.

For more, follow @Linda_Margaret on Twitter.

Social media and government: 5 to 11 January 2015

In France, the terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo sparked the trending hashtag #jesuischarliehebdo in support of the victims. The hacker group Anonymous announced via their Belgian social media account that they are declaring war against the terrorists.

In an international survey of writers, PEN, a US-based literary and human rights organisation, noted that 31% of social media users in democratic countries as well as 41% in non-democratic countries have actually avoided activity on social media for fear of government surveillance.

In the USA, the International Conference on Cyber Security hosted Ali Kazemi, associate general counsel at Tumblr. Kazemi noted that "Our primary goal [at Tumblr] is protecting our users and protecting the platform,” he said. “Working with law enforcement is a sort of neutral secondary obligation. At least that’s how we view it."

At the same time, US social media users better trust their network. An American federal court ruled in Palmieri v. United States that if a member of a social media user's network shares content from his or her friend with law enforcement, there has been no violation of privacy.

Speaking of privacy, it is not something enjoyed by public officials in the USA. Via a Facebook comment, a Maryland lawmaker threatened to sue a journalist for using his name in an article. The journalist protested (also via Facebook) that she had a right to write about elected leaders. After he was ridiculed in traditional as well as social media for his lack of knowledge with regard to the rights of the American media, the official made a public apology to the journalist.

Eight vehicles belonging to the Venezuelan state telephone company CANTV were destroyed last week, causing a ripple in national social media. Opposition party leaders were careful to distance their party from the attack and claimed that the governing party used social networks to spread malicious rumours regarding the opposition's involvement in the destruction.

The London public vented their ire about overcrowding on London Bridge station on social media. British transport authorities chastised Network Rail, which has promised to remedy the situation.

Hungary saw another government protest online and offline this week, led by Zsolt Várady, the founder of a one-time social media website iWiW and the current leader of the “MostMi” (Now we) social movement.

In Kenya in the town of Machakos, Governor @DrAlfredMutua used Twitter to chastise the New Year Concert promoter who ripped off several local artists. 

In Burundi, local soldiers killed 100 alleged rebels along the Congolese border. The Legal representative of the Forum for Strengthening Civil Society in Burundi noted with concern that the government may not have been entirely honest in its description of the violence and that the opposition party has shown support for the government's attack via social media.

Egyptian Roads and Bridges Department Head Ashraf Helmy claimed early last week that social media photos showing huge cracks in the 6 October Bridge were inaccurate. He noted that the photos instead showed "longitudinal expansions" and explained these "expansions" would be fixed as soon as possible.

In Turkey, pro-government trolls in social media supported and pro-government press was at best lukewarm in reaction to the terrorist attacks in Paris. The pro-government social media troll Esat Ç. tweeted that an attack on a religion is greater terrorism than an armed attack. The pro-government newspaper Türkiye ran a story with the headline, “Attack on the magazine that insulted our Prophet.”

Taliban social media joined other Afghans in social media jokes about the current government's inability to form a Cabinet. In line with the current cold climate in Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid allegedly tweeted "Perhaps the cabinet is frozen!"

UAE leader Shaikh Mohammad, one of the top ten world leaders on Twitter, led the social media campaign "Thank you Guardians of the Nation" in honour of the armed forces of the United Arab Emirates. The UAE military has has participated in bombing missions against ISIS.

In addition to making their sites more mobile, India's leaders are creating their own version of Google Hangouts, called "Talkathon," to better engage with citizens. 

Last week Indian officials unblocked several sites (weebly.com, vimeo.com, dailymotion.com and gist.github.com) that have been blocked since November for hosting jihadist recruitment material.

Mumbai police blocked re-posts of Charlie Hebdo cartoons via social media.

Pakistan is considering legislation to limit social media following the deadly terrorist attacks on a school in Peshawar. 

In China, the People's Daily, a mouthpiece for the ruling party, included an article that asked Chinese to be "good netizens." "We need young netizens to shoulder the responsibility of morality and consciously practice socialist core values online." At the same time, Chinese authorities sought to minimise social media coverage of the deadly New Year's stampede in Shanghai where several people died when people stampeded in reaction to a company tossing coupons that looked like money into the air. Chinese leadership also accidentally admitted to purchasing malware despite legislation forbidding it.

Indonesian professor Rosnida Sari cancelled plans to speak in a Catholic Church as part of her attempt to promote interfaith interaction after being bullied and threatened in Indonesian social media.

A Philippine nurse in Singapore was fired and kicked out of the country after posting comments critical of the Singapore government on Facebook. As a result, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration is considering adding social media training to its pre-departure seminars.

Despite spending several million on listening to Australians in social media, the government in Queensland warned public officials to be careful about their "political commentary" in social media. 

The government of the Solomon Islands promised the social media pressure group Forum Solomon Islands International (FSII) that it's top ten priorities will be in an upcoming policy document. 

For more, follow @Linda_Margaret on Twitter.