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.
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