Sunday, May 31, 2015

Social media in government: 25 May to 1 June

Summary

Notes to readers:

Thanks for the feedback! I'm working on making it easier to search by country for news (easier than CNTRL + F and the country's name.) I've found a way to do this - I just haven't yet been able to implement it successfully. Hopefully, when I have some time in July, I can do this.

Again, an exhaustive list of what went on when it comes to social media and government (bureaucracy) and Government (elected leadership) last week. The end goal of this blog is an eBook on Social media and government for 2015 to be published in December 2015/January 2016, which I hope will be useful. In the meantime, you can also catch updates on Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook.

Okay, the summary...

The UK has a new (old) Conservative Government that introduced its planned bills in the traditional Queen's Speech last Wednesday. In addition to the speech itself being covered in social media, there was a lot of talk about the rebirth of the "Snooper's Charter" - Sir Tim Berners Lee is not a fan. Estonia's former Foreign Minister may (not) be racist, but she is definitely not a fan of immigration, according to her Facebook posts. Russian Government is on the outs - potentially - with Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Plus, Russia is listening to its citizens online in an NSA-sort of way. (If we didn't already know that...) Also, the Chechen leadership is pro-polygamy, according to netizens, and anti-women online, according to the President of the Chechen Republic.

IS is still trumpeting victory in social media posts, this time in Palmyra and Libya. Burundi's coup is over if it ever was, but the protests online and off are not. Nigerians and Ghanians are still protesting about a lack of energy. For the Nigerians, it's fuel scarcity and for the Ghanians, it's electricity. Kenya wants to crack down on "reckless social media users." Sudanese are offering condolences to the Facebook profile of a pilot that the Government says didn't die in a skirmish with rebels.

Iranians like Tinder, but the Iranian Government is trying to lure them to a dating / social networking site actually run by the Government. Iraq's social media holds officials accountable but can support sectarian violence. The UAE will use social media to promote the upcoming elections.

China is courting Internet intellectuals and hoteliers while shutting down riots (demonstrations?) online and off. India's Prime Minister celebrates his first year of office and his rival party in Delhi celebrates their first 100 days in office. Pakistan will now monitor online media. Cambodia is in trouble with activists for using the existing penal code to take legal action against social media users. Thailand is worried about anti-migrant rhetoric online. Malaysians may be getting spammed by the Government - meanwhile, they are also reading a lot of pulp fiction that they find online and that is politically controversial. Nauru has still banned Facebook, despite criticism from within and without. Aussies are threatening Johnny Depp over his illegally-smuggled terriers - again.

Canada's state of Alberta saw a young legislator kicked out of the ruling party over social media posts. The USA has new candidates for the Presidential primaries, plus a Pew study on privacy (just in time for the expiration of the Patriot Act). Also, a nice interview with a tech-savvy US Senator who finds the Senate um, not tech-savvy at all. And Mexicans are using social media to organise after a tornado in the city of Acuña.

Venezuelans use satellites to launch their own social network just as a Venezuelan leader gets online criticism for potentially being involved in a drug cartel. And a Brazilian blogger and investigative journalist is found tortured and decapitated.

Then some tools and reports...

Lastly, I read a great article by Oren Levy (@orenzooz) about social media worldwide, so I've included the rundown per country here.

Europe

The United Kingdom

The Queen delivered the "Queen's Speech" last Wednesday. In her speech, the Queen reads through the promises of the new (old, in this case) Government for the coming years. The speech was live-Tweeted using the hashtag #QueensSpeech. A good summary from the live politics blog at The Guardian can be found here. The most relevant bill for social media includes a revival of the so-called "snoopers' charter," known as an Investigatory Powers Bill allowing police and spied to "target the online communications" of suspected terrorists.

Many Tweeted their own (biased) summaries.

Sources: @AndrewSparrow

The Inventor of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee (@srtimbernerslee) took the stage with Twitter's UK Public Policy head at the Web We Want Festival (#WebWeWantFest). The two called for a digital Magna Carta. Berners-Lee highlighted the return of the so-called Snoopers' Charter, mentioned in the Queen's Speech Wednesday, as a particular concern.  “The discussion [in the Queen’s Speech] of increased monitoring powers is something which is a red flag … this discussion is a global one, it’s a big one, it’s something that people are very engaged with, they think it’s very important, and they’re right, because it is very important for democracy, and it’s very important for business,"Berners-Lee said speaking to the Guardian.

Sources: @lynseybarber

The UK's Ministry of Defence (MOD) has awarded a contract to Microsoft Office 365 for just under £50 million via the pan-government ‘Technology Products’ framework. The MOD’s Chief Information Officer Mike Stone wrote in a blog post on Government Technology, that he   “announced details of 30 specific improvements that we will deliver between September 2014 and March 2015, including better access to the internet, quicker logon and logoff times, access to social media and more flexible mobility solutions using WiFi."

Sources: +GOV.UK

The UK is coming under pressure to drop a current five cents tax on sanitary napkins after Canada ended a similar tax. A social media campaign (covered in early May in this blog) in Canada labeled the tax the #tampontax and pressured officials to strike it down. Now British netizens are following suit. "A UK Change.org petition has gathered more than 200,000 online signatures with thousands more campaigning on social media against the policy that sees five per cent tax added to the price of tampons," according to The Independent.
Sources: +The Independent, @rose_catb

Almost half of all UK residents are on social networks, with 75% of all 16 to 24-year-olds active in social media. “Facebook is the most popular social networking site, with a unique audience of 35.1 million in March 2014. Facebook’s digital audience has grown 6.4 percent over the past 12 months, with an audience three times larger than Twitter and LinkedIn. Nevertheless, according to research from Econsultancy, LinkedIn is responsible for 64 percent of visits to corporate websites from any social media site....The most popular UK social media sites include YouTube (40 million), Facebook (35.1 million), Twitter (11.9 million), LinkedIn (11.3 million), Google Plus (8.8 million), MySpace (0.9 million) and Friends Reunited (0.4 million).”

Sources: @orenzooz

France

For French, the most popular social networks are Viadeo (with 65 million members), Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, MySpace and Google Plus.

Sources: @orenzooz

Germany

In addition to leading Europe in smart phone ownership, “90% of peoples ages 14 to 29 years are registered on social networks [in Germany.] The most popular networks are Facebook, Google+, Xing, Wer-kennt-wen, MeinVZ/StudyVZ, LinkedIn, MySpace and Lokalisten.”

Sources: @orenzooz

Denmark

“According to Alexa, Facebook is the second most popular site in Denmark (after Google.dk and ahead of Google.com). Slightly more than half (53 percent) of the Danish people are on Facebook, with 60 percent of the users are between ages 18 and 44.”

Sources: @orenzooz

Estonia

Estonian politician Kristiina Ojuland (@OjulandK), former foreign minister and leader of the non-parliamentary Party of People's Unity, has been called a racist for several of her recent Facebook posts about Mediterranean migration. She uses the increasingly unaccepted word "neeger" when referring to African migrants."Stop using the word 'racist'! As a white person, I feel that the white race is threatened today!" Ojuland posted when responding to critical reactions on her Facebook page. 

Source: +Sputnik News 

 

Russia

The Russian agency overseeing communication and media, Roskomnadzor, threatened to block access to Google, Facebook, and Twitter if these services did not hand over data on specific Russian bloggers. Roskomnadzor wants the personal data of Russian bloggers with 3 000 daily readers or more and would like the three social networks to delete any content that promotes protests or unsanctioned public events. 

Sources: @JPManga

A pro-Kremlin political center will use a new computer program to mine social network sites for mentions of unauthorised protests. When such chatter is found, the center will report those involved to the local authorities.  The group that developed the program is called the Center for the Study of Legitimacy and Political protest - or - more ominously - it is referred to as “Laplace’s Demon.” The ultimate goal of the Center's work ("a system to prevent mass disorder") appears to be the ability to divine protests (and name protestors) before anything happens and then report the would-be participants to the local authorities. The software went live 18 May.

Sources: @thepacketrat, +Ars Technica


In Chechnya, a 17-year-old girl was married to an official pushing fifty who was reportedly already married. The official was a friend of the loud and pugnacious President Ramzan A. Kadyrov (@RamzanKadyrov), in turn a close friend of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Chechen social media mocked Kadyrov for his new interest in polygamy with comics, Tweets, blog posts, and more.  Kadyrov was not amused. “Stop it!...Behave like Chechens,” he said. “Honour of the family is the most important thing. Don’t write such things anymore. You, men, keep your women far away from WhatsApp!...Lock them in, do not let them go out, and they will not post anything,” Kadyrov screamed in a video in which he was speaking, according to The National Post, “to a sheepish group of men and women who kept their arms folded across their chests and their eyes firmly on the ground during the harangue....Pavel Astakhov, the Kremlin official who is supposed to protect children’s rights in Russia, defended the practice of older men taking young brides. During a radio interview, he suggested that was especially the case in places like Chechnya where women were “shrivelled” by the age of 27, looking at that age like most Russian women do at 50.” This initiated the hashtag #wrinkledwomen, and Astakhov, for one, apologised (somewhat) by stating women of all ages are beautiful…


Sources: +The National Post


Russia’s largest social network is VK (vKontakte) with 228 million reg­is­tered users, including Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Odnoklassniki is the second largest social network. “Facebook is gaining users, as well; the network had only 10.8 million Russian users in 2013, but that number nearly doubled in 2014….In 2013, advertisers spent $83.7 million on VK ads and almost double that amount advertising on Odnoklassniki. Targeting options are extensive, allowing advertisers to efficiently reach their target audiences.”

Sources: @orenzooz

 

Africa

Libya

The Islamic State again used Twitter to brag via photos and text that it had seized a Libyan military camp.

Sources: +Reuters

Burundi

The coup is over - if it ever was. Meanwhile, Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza has postponed local and parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for May 26.  Deutsche Welle used social media to poll its African - particularly its Swahili-speaking -  readers about their reactions to Burundi's recent crisis. Almost 300 responded to the poll in the subsequent week or two. Here are the reactions (in Swahili) on the Swahili DW Facebook page. The majority of respondents think that regional leaders should intervene to ensure that peace and the Constitution are respected. When asked what should be done to leaders that cling to power, most said that such leaders should be ousted through a peaceful revolution and that governments should possibly amend any laws that give a president immunity so that presidents can be held accountable if they want to hang on to power unconstitutionally.

Sources: +Deutsche Welle in English

Nigeria

In Nigeria, social media was furious over the #FuelScarcity crisis impacting the country. The incoming Government accused the old of sabotage as wholesale fuel distributors withheld petrol claiming that they are owed one billion USD by the government. The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) is in negotiations with the government and stakeholders to resolve the crisis. 


Sources: @DarrylLinington, @itnewsafrica

Ghana

Celebrities in Ghana have continue to join online and offline political protests that say #DumsorMustStop. "Dumsor" is the street name in Ghana for power outages. Dumsors have increased of late, and the Ghanaian opposition leaders say that the dumsors are a deliberate effort by the current Government to hurt opposition businesses and leaders. Others note that the Government has to pay a debt to Nigeria in order to get more consistent power delivered. Whatever the cause, the current Government is largely being blamed and celebrities and citizens are hosting online and offline campaigns to get the dumsors to just stop.




Sources: +Ghana web

Kenya

In Kenya, Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery has promised to crack down on “reckless social media users” after the casualties in an attack by the terrorist group al Shaabab were greatly exaggerated, according to reports. Nkaissery stressed media providers must check with the Inspector General of Police, the police spokesman or the Interior ministry spokesman on security issues before they publish. "The media is free - but not to create fear among the public. The Kenyan media lacks patriotism. Why do you publish information from al Shabaab and pictures of victims of terrorism?" Nkaissery complained to journalists, citing a photo in the Kenyan news The Standard that showed a police victim of the attack and claiming that such images "encourag[e] the enemy.”
Sources: +AllAfrica

Sudan


Adhelmouz Machiek Adhelmouz, a South Sudanese army pilot, is rumoured to have died in a helicopter crash after he was shot down by rebels. The South Sudanese army has dismissed the rumours as propaganda, but images of the pilot and condolences have circulated widely on social media in South Sudan. Many have posted their regrets directly to Adhelmouz's Facebook profile. South Sudan is a repressive media environment; citizens use social media as a way to share information not available in the mainstream media. 

Sources: Sudan Tribune

 

Middle East

Syria

The ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, a site of numerous antiquities, was seized two weeks ago by IS despite social media posts from the earlier occupants who had called themselves the Grandchildren of Zenobia (referencing an ancient Palmyran queen.) These former occupants had shared several social media messages before the fight claiming that "Zenobia will never fall."



Sources: @hwaida_saad

 

Iran

The Iranian government has launched a social network/dating site in a bid to reduce the divorce rate among young Iranian couples. Hamsan.tebyan.net allows users to sign up and fill out profiles that are only fully visible to the sites 100+ administrators who then use information like height, weight, and occupation (including parents’ occupations) to match suitable candidates. (There are no questions about hobbies or taste in music, according to the BBC’s examination of the site.) Users of Hamsan.tebyan.net can also find articles on the dangers of premarital sex and how to find love in Iran (presumably on the site?)

Sources: @ErinBanco

The new dating site might be in reaction to the growing popularity of the dating application/social network Tinder in Iran. Despite being banned, Iranians with web access and a VPN are apparently accessing the dating application with some regularity.

Sources: @IranNewsUpdate1

Iraq

Iraqis can use social media to pressure their government to be accountable, as they did in April when criticising the Government's decision to abandon Iraqi soldiers at the Nazim al-Tharthar dam located north of Baghdad. Citizens called for Defence Minister Khaled al-Obaidi to be fired and, while he remains in office, he did provide casualty figures from the controversial battle. Yet sectarian violence in Iraq can leak into Iraqi social media (or vice versa) leading the Iraqi government to frequently censor or ban different social media.  For example, the page “Iraq’s Sunnis” accused the Popular Mobilization Units of killing residents in the Sunni areas where the fighting is ongoing, such as Tikrit and Diyala province. This did result in the social media campaign “No to sectarianism;” however, the online and offline environment is a difficult one to navigate with respect to freedom of speech and keeping the peace. An Al-Monitor article gives a good overview of the situation here.

Sources: +Al-Monitor

United Arab Emirates

In October, several thousand Emirati citizens selected by the rulers of each Emirate will participate in the Federal National Council election. To engage voters, the National Election Committee has opened up social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram under the handle uaeelection. Updates are in Arabic. 

 

Asia

China

The Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department ran a 10-day training (March 23 to April 3rd) in which Chinese Internet intellectuals and social media activists attended lectures and joined in group discussions. Invited participants networked and shared best practices as well as "tour[ed] Gutian county in Fujian province, where a significant meeting was held in 1929 to ensure late leader Mao Zedong’s leadership position in the Red Army." Reviews from those that attended were positive, but skeptics still wonder if the Chinese leadership plans to embrace or simply do its best to recruit new media celebrities to its work.

Sources: @keiralulu

Wu Hai, a Chinese man who owns 65 hotels in about 20 Chinese cities, used social media to publish a 5 000 word critique of local government corruption in late March. He compared Chinese society to a family: “Government officials, he said, are like the legitimate children of the prevailing power. State-owned enterprises are the children of favoured concubines, and private companies are bastard children birthed by prostitutes. The private companies ‘dare not speak, because we need to live,’ he said. ‘If we say something that may make a legitimate child feel uncomfortable, we could be chided, jailed, and other legitimate children will torture us to death.’” Surprisingly - or not so much, depending on who you believe - Wu was not punished but instead recently invited to meet with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and other senior leaders in the Chinese Government to share his ideas about how to streamline bureaucracy to help Chinese businesses. Wu may be a subject of propaganda, given his generally positive feelings towards the Chinese Government, or his experience may be a sign that Chinese officials are genuinely trying to curb corruption.  

Sources: +Associated Press 

Demonstrators in Linshui county, a rural part of Sichuan province, protested official plans to build yet another railway line to Guang’an, birthplace to legendary Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. Protestors claimed - with good reason - that Chinese officials tend to favour political sites for development projects and that Linshui has a bigger population than Guang’an, and “needs” a railway. Protestors took the streets with signs that said, “We want development, prosperity and a railway.” Police clashed with protestors in a violent confrontation and later the Government media said the Linshui “riot” had been put down. However, social media accounts that made their way onto the Internet before authorities shut down all web services in the Linshui area suggested the riot was more of the government’s making.

Sources: +Financial Times, @JamilAnderlini


“According to China Business Review, the Chinese typically engage in social media far more than other populations for various reasons, including the separation of families due to rural-to-urban migration, and a distrust of information disseminated by the government-controlled media.” WeChat (“weixin” in Chinese) has 300 million users in China and abroad. Youku and Tudou are China’s equivalent of YouTube but, unlike YouTube, host largely professionally-made content. Sina Weibo (a sort of Twitter meets blogging platform) is China’s most popular social network. Other well-known networks include: Douban (books, cinema, culture and music enthusiasts), Kaixin001 (white-collar workers or young professionals in cities), QZone (young, urban users and migrant workers), RenRen (a sort of Facebook - attracts university students.) It’s estimated that twenty-seven percent of Chinese used their mobile to purchase something in January 2014. 


Sources: @orenzooz

Japan

Because the Japanese were early adopters in mobile phones, most Japanese social networks were developed specifically for mobile. Japan has 50.8 million smartphone users. Facebook has 17 million Japanese users to date, a 300% increase since 2012. Facebook is used largely for job-hunting and networking in Japan. LinkedIn, launched in 2011 in the Japanese language, is less popular given the Japanese culture does not endorse self-promotion or job-hopping. Line (similar to WeChat but with the option to buy things) has 50 million Japanese users.  Mixi (over 21 million users) is also popular (it used to be Japan’s most popular social network), and it is invitation-only and for users 18 or older. 

Sources: @orenzooz

India

To celebrate his first year in office - May 26th, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‏(@narendramodi) sent out personalised Direct Messages on Twitter to all his followers as well as any Twitter users that Tweeted the hashtag #SaalEkShuruaatAnek ("one year, many beginnings".) If you click to read the link in his DM, you are prompted to share a Tweet or a Facebook or G+ post highlighting one of his successes while in office. The pre-planned social media messages point to positive work by Modi in one of four areas: governance, global recognition for India, (PM Modi's) vision in action, and "then and now" - how India has improved under the current Prime Minister.
Additional hashtags sharing the good and bad related to the PM include #Modiwinsheart, #OneyearofModigovernment, #Oneyearofsalute. As with President Obama in the USA, there has been criticism that while Prime Minister Modi's Government is active and engaged in social media, it lacks transparency and tends to avoid the traditional media.

Sources: @narendramodi, +Business Standard

BJP's youth wing president and Member of Parliament Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) released the 15 minute video 'WinWin365', which showcases initiatives undertaken by the Narendra Modi government during its first year in office. The video is being screened in select locations and circulated in social media. (If you've gotten a copy, please share...)

Sources: @ianuragthakur


Union surface transport minister Nitin Gadkari (@nitin_gadkari) criticised the Indian Congress Party for its stand against the land acquisition bill. He encouraged his supporters to use social media to spread the good work done by the ruling BJP party.  "Party workers should form Whatsapp groups of people at district, taluka and village level and pass on the information regarding the good decisions taken by the government and the schemes launched," Gadkari advised. 

Sources: +The Times of India 

Two months ago, India's Supreme Court annulled the section 66A in the IT Act and section 118 D of the Kerala Police Act (covered in this blog towards the end of March.) However, given recent examples of online defamation via social media, the Home Minister for the Indian State of Kerala, Ramesh Chennithala (@chennithala), has suggested that the state Government will amend the Kerala Police Act again to enable prosecution of defamation.

Sources: +Manorama Online

According to a recent report from the brokerage Credit Suisse, the traditional voice and messaging services offered by telecommunication companies are (surprise?) looking at big losses in revenue to over-the-top (OTT) applications like Whatsapp and Skype. The report noted that Indian telecommunication companies are among the "most exposed"to the threat because Indian telcos still derive more than 80% of their revenue from voice. In the US, Europe, China, Australia, and Korea, data is a more substantial part of revenue; thus the threat posed by OTT apps to profit is less. Indian telcos also lose a lot in service tax to the government, something the OTT apps avoid.

Sources: +The Economic Times


The Indian Serious Fraud Instigation Office (SFIO), a multi-disciplinary organisation under the Corporate Affairs Ministry, is in charge of detecting fraud and white collar crime. The SFIO will now include online social media and web monitoring in its arsenal of tools for detecting such crime. They will procure the software through the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT). The software will “generate reports on money trails, accounts through which funds were transferred, mode of payments such as cheques, cash or online transfer, the quantum of funds transferred from the main account to either group accounts, related parties, directors or Key Management Personnel accounts…scan transactions routed to or from accounts of directors and their relatives, while identifying the high value transactions and the transactions pertaining to a particular entity…and [contain] a Business Intelligence capability to generate complex money trails reports based on business rules, as also a 'fuzzy logic capability' of grouping various kinds of transactions into a single bucket.”

Sources: +The Times of India 

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras banned a study circle from using its auditorium after it was alleged the study circle used their time to critique the Indian Prime Minister Modi. Student social media erupted with debate over whether it was a correct use of the public research university’s power. 

Sources: +Oneindia News


Delhi’s nomination for UNESCO world heritage city was withdrawn by the Indian Government for fear it would hamper infrastructure development in the city. This sparked a bit of outrage and debate on social media. 
Sources: +The Indian Express 

How are local Indian leaders doing on social media? One journalist posted his opinion here. In short, he says: lots of talk but little follow-up and almost no interaction with actual requests from local Indian leaders in social media.

Sources: +Business Standard 

Pakistan

Pakistan has established a government office to monitor online and offline media referring to the government and its policies. Maryam Nawaz Sharif (@MaryamNSharif) will supervise the new Strategic Media Communication Cell under the Ministry of Information, Broadcasting & National Heritage. The Cell will also co-ordinate with other government departments to run annual social media campaigns.

Cambodia

The Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his current Government have threatened legal action against people using social media to "insult" or "defame" officials.  Government spokesman Phay Siphan sent letters to the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication last week asking leaders there to pursue relevant court action against "immoral" online users. Siphan stated he was particularly concerned by posts suggesting officials are Vietnamese or photos altered to show authorities in pornographic poses. He also emphasised that such legal action is rooted in the existing Cambodian penal code. (Articles 305 to 308 of the criminal code subject individuals that participate in defamation or insulting media to fines ranging from 100,000 to 10,000,000 riel, or about $25 to $2,500. The code covers text, images or videos meant to be made public.)
The opposition party, NGOs, and netizens have responded with scathing criticism that such legal action threatens freedom of speech. Ny Chariya, director of the human rights investigation unit for local rights group ADHOC (@ADHOC__Cambodia), argued that the threat was "politically motivated." “When freedom of speech is restricted in a country, that country is no longer democratic, and I believe that constructive comments and criticism should be considered highly valued by officials for the improvement of society," Sideth said, calling on "all officials—especially Phay Siphan—to embrace social media because it is beneficial for the government...Government officials can use this information to get a better sense of the impact of their work in the country’s development process." Cambodia's somewhat controversial and, according the the US-based Freedom House, "poorly defined" Law on Cybercrime and Telecommunication is nearing completion, drawing additional attention to this issue.


Sources: @jdlipes

The Cambodian Prime Minister alluded that a controversial Law on Associations and Nongovernmental Organizations, believed to be shelved in 2011, will be ratified soon. The Law threatens to restrict Cambodian NGO funding and free speech, among other things. In reaction, Cambodian NGOs have banded together to create a social media campaign on Facebook called “Stop and Consult.” The campaign asks the Cambodian Government to involve NGOs and civil society in drafting a more friendly version of the legislation. Maina Kiai (@MainaKiai_UNSR), the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, noted that the Cambodian government has a “complex history” with local NGOs. “Advocacy NGOs often face charges of defamation, incitement of violence and other crimes — not consistently but selectively.”
A deadline set by Prime Minister Hun Sen to finalize a controversial draft NGO law by the end of May will be missed, as...
Posted by Stop and Consult on Friday, May 29, 2015
Sources: +Devex

Thailand

The Thai Government expressed concern May 18th about the anti-migrant vitriol flooding social media. This, Thai officials explained, is why Thailand cannot accept any more of the asylum seekers arriving by boat. Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar have received increasingly hostile reactions from Thailand and Malaysia while the majority Muslim Indonesians are more accepting - but less and less. USA's Secretary of State John Kerry appealed to Thailand's junta Government, which then agreed to provide temporary shelters for those refugees that made it ashore. The anger on Thai media was immediate, and many Thai used the hashtag #USAMUSTHelpRohingya, noting the USA should do what it is asking Thailand to do.

Sources: @MimiSawitta


Malaysia


In Malaysia, Politweet researcher Ahmad Kamal Nava noticed “suspicious spikes” when it came to government event tweets and hashtags. He traced a lot of the online interaction to Indonesian-based spam applications including Sambal ABC and Sosial Media Berita. “The timing of the retweets mentioned and the similar timelines of the accounts using the applications leads us to believe that many of these accounts are involved in a spamming service,” Nava told Malay Mail Online last week. A government spokesperson claimed that Politweet was wrong and that the events to which Politweet referred were too tightly budgeted to be able to afford a spam service. 

Sources: @Kama7esh

As the Government in Malaysia has grown more conservative, a trend supported by social media is picking up. Former bloggers are increasingly publishing racy, typo-laden and frequently politically critical - or at least objectionable - pulp fiction. Young Malays go to Twitter and Instagram to peruse the latest titles and then head out to pop-up books to buy the publications. The pop-up book sellers and pulp fiction authors also use social media to promote books, source ideas, and encourage writers.

Sources: @chenmayyee

Nauru

At the 71st Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Nauru's President Baron Waqa, said "Nauru has been on the receiving end recently of biased and unsubstantiated reporting by foreign media and left-wing groups regarding the government's decision to ban Facebook…In a tiny community with only 10,000 people and where nearly everyone knows one another the effects of social media to inform and to advertise is very powerful indeed…The power is to disrupt, embarrass, destroy one's reputation and to create instability.” President Waqa was responding to recent criticism from free speech advocates and refugee activists to Nauru’s ban on Facebook, often used by refugees (Nauru hosts large refugee camps) and Nauru citizens to criticise the current Government.  The Facebook ban, enacted in April, accompanied legislation that punishes online comments that are “threatening, abusive or insulting in nature" with up to seven years in jail. Shun-ichi Murata, the deputy executive secretary of ESCAP, disagreed. He said Nauru's crackdown on free speech was inconsistent with the region's sustainable development goals. "An inclusiveness of the communication and participation of the people, that part is an important element from the development perspective. All leaders agreed to that and I hope the correction will be made in the future."


Sources: +Radio Australia 

Australia

The #WaronTerrier continues as the Australian Government threatens American celebrity Johnny Depp with a fine and jail time for smuggling his two dogs into the country via private jet. The two dogs were outed in a social media post from their Australian groomers (covered two weeks ago in this blog). Depp had to deport the dogs before they were put down.

Sources: +BuzzFeed, @lanesainty

An Australian seeking transparency and accountability in governance of food and nutrition has an interesting approach. He posts any and all letters he sends to officials (handwritten or otherwise) to a Facebook page, and then he posts the replies (if her receives any.) He notes that state officials are much better at responding than national authorities.

Sources: @mariemcinerney


North America

Canada

“Alberta's newly elected government suspended one of its rookie legislators...after offensive pictures she posted on social media before being elected emerged.” The legislator, Sociology student Deborah Drever, 26, will now sit as an independent. Drever had already received criticism for posting a photo of a hand flipping off the Canadian flag, another photo of her posing with a Marijuana leaf t-shirt, and a photo of a band cover in which she looks as if she’s sexually assaulting herself with a bottle. The final straw that got Drever ejected from the party was an Instagram post of former Alberta leaders with the title “Gay Boyz.”  After she ousted Drever from the party, NDP Premier-elect Rachel Notley published a statement in which she said,  "I apologize to all Albertans for the homophobic statements contained in this image, which are completely contrary to the views of our party and our future government.” 

Sources: +Reuters, @ScottHaggett

The 42nd general Federal election in Canada is scheduled for October 19th, 2015. Parties are already gearing up online and off. Follow their leaders on Twitter here and check out real-time Tweets below.


USA

The Pew Center published a study May 20th explaining that Americans value their privacy and don't believe that the government or private companies actually protect their data. In short, the survey found out:
  • Most Americans hold strong views about the importance of privacy in their everyday lives.
  • Permission and publicness are key features that influence views on surveillance. 
  • Americans have little confidence that their data will remain private and secure. 
  • Few feel they have “a lot” of control over how much information is collected about them in daily life and how it is used. 
  • A very small number say they have changed their behavior to avoid being tracked recently, but many were already engaged in more common or less technical privacy-enhancing measures. 
  • Advanced measures, such as the use of proxy servers and encryption are less common.
  • Most want limits on the length of time that records of their activity can be retained.
  • Those who have greater awareness of the government monitoring programs are more likely to believe that certain records should not be saved for any length of time. 
  • 65% of American adults believe there are not adequate limits on the telephone and internet data that the government collects.
  • 55% of Americans support the idea of online anonymity for certain activities, but many are undecided on the issue.
  • Even as they expect online anonymity, most assume that motivated people and organizations could uncover private details.
Look in the reports section of this blog for a further summary of the findings.

Sources: @vindugoel

Twitter suspended the account of Charles C. Johnson, an infamous conservative troll, after Johnson threatened to collect donations to "take out" DeRay McKesson, a civil rights activist. Twitter's guidelines, including those related to what constitutes abuse, were updated in April. Johnson took to Facebook to let Twitter know he plans to sue the company.

Sources: +Mashable, @JasonAbbruzzese



The USA’s Environmental Protection Agency is under fire from critics for a successful social media campaign that raised support for the Clean Water Act. The Act, due out this month, will increase EPA control over America’s waterways. “The EPA said it received nearly 900,000 comments on its Clean Water Act proposal. Before a congressional hearing, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy testified that 87 percent of those comments supported her agency’s proposal.” Yet those that oppose the Act claim that the EPA violated the anti-Lobbying Act, which prohibits federal agencies from advocacy work. “When an agency does what happened here, which is to propose a rule and then immediately embark on a PR campaign … It looks like the agency’s predetermined the outcome,” noted Ellen Steen, general counsel of the American Farm Bureau Federation, which opposes the Act. “It looks like the agency isn’t thoughtfully considering public input.” However, the EPA disagrees. “These communications simply directed the recipient to the general web page about the Clean Water Rule,” said an EPA spokesperson. “EPA has used social media to educate people about the importance of streams and wetlands and the importance of clarifying protection under the Clean Water Act.”

Sources: @RichEdsonDC

According to the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crime Complaint Center, known as IC3, in 2014 criminals drastically increased their use of social media and any online platform related to cryptocurrenices. IC3 got 269,422 complaints that totaled in more than $800 million lost in 2014. Complaints have quadrupled in the past five years and 12% of all complaints in 2014 involved social media. Common scams include using "Like" or "Share" buttons to download malware into a person's computer. Social media was also used in doxing (releasing personally identifiable information of users), and pharming (redirecting user from legitimate to fraudulent websites). The Justice Department estimates that only 15% of US-based fraud victims actually report their crimes to law enforcement and only up to 10 percent filed a complaint via IC3's website. Read the report in Reports.

Sources: @gregotto


Cory Booker (@CoryBooker), former Mayor of Newark, New Jersey and now a Senator for the state of New Jersey, took the US Senate to task for its Luddite approach to technology and web analytics in an interview with Wired Magazine. Booker has over 1.55 million followers on Twitter and is active on several other social networks. He has used technology and social media to help kick-start and maintain citizen-centric initiatives in Newark and New Jersey. “When they told me I couldn’t sit on the Senate floor with an iPad—that the technology wasn’t even permitted—I breathed deep and knew that I was going to have to start pushing.” Booker says of his arrival to DC in 2013. Booker told Wired he is frustrated that when he asks users on Twitter a question, it's counted as a poll and thus subject to somewhat anarchic Senate regulations and that the use of web analytics, which is a great way to objectively review citizen priorities, is not allowed in the Senate. "We’re not providing information to the public in a format that is useful. Lobbyists, for example, are all the more powerful because they have information that citizens generally don’t....We should be upset about that. There should be easily searchable databases of the Senate’s business. If you live in New York City, you can go into a restaurant and use an app that gives you complete transparency about the health record of that restaurant. It’s there because the Bloomberg administration released the bulk data from its health department, which innovative people used to make apps. We are not doing that, but just imagine if we did. You could have an app that alerts you every time legislation that’s important to you is being marked up in committee and when it makes it to the floor for a vote—and what poison pills might be slipped into it. " Booker also talked about how social media can help citizens and officials "take control of a narrative," referring as a specific example to his online feud with talk show host Conan O'Brien over a joke he made about the city of Newark - even Hillary Clinton got involved in the online back and forth. As a result, Booker and Newark citizens were able to call out those who made fun of the city and point out the many improvements Newark has seen over the past few years. 

Sources: @jessiwrites, @WIRED

Fox news claims that it has received a bulletin "sent from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and National Counterterrorism Center one day before the Memorial Day holiday weekend" that suggests that social media-savvy IS supporters and propagandists have overwhelmed US investigators. The IS supporters on social media, Fox reports plan to target "military bases, locations, and events..."

 Sources: +Fox News Insider 
NASA is joining the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to create a sort-of super-search engine for the so-called “dark net.” The “dark net” is an anonymous and encrypted (and very social-network-savvy) part of the Internet often used for illegal activities from drug deals and pornography to identity theft/sales to arms sales and even human trafficking. The project is called Memex - combining memory and index - and will be able to identify subtle changes in online activity as well as index information gleaned from the “dark web.” In addition, Memex would help catalogue and organise the data provided daily by NASA spacecraft. Memex can “read” more than text - it can understand and index video, images, pop-up ads, and other ways information is stored on the Internet. 

Sources: @markprigg, +Mail Online 

Another candidate has entered the bid for the Republican Party Presidential nomination this past week: former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Santorum is a Catholic and strong pro-life / anti-abortion activist.
And another candidate is asking for the Democratic nomination: Martin O'Malley, former Governor of Maryland and a former mayor of the city of Baltimore. O'Malley announced his bid via Twitter's Periscope.

Remember, if you want to keep up with the USA Presidential candidates on Twitter, you can subscribe to this 2016 Presidential Twitter list or check out the Tweets below.



Alternatively, you can follow this Facebook list.


A school district in the US state of Florida has implemented software to immediately collect and categorise social media posts from students and staff in an attempt to halt cyberbullying. The administrators of the program pointed out that social media posts are, for the most part, public, so it is not illegal to monitor and review them. 

Sources: @lesliepostal

In the US state of Kansas, the capital city of Wichita is using social media-based "town halls" to solicit citizen priorities in the 2015-16 budget. The city has successfully used this strategy for the last four years. The first 2015 social media town hall meeting will be from 2 to 3:30 pm this Tuesday. To comment, netizens need only like Wichita on Facebook or follow the city on Twitter @CityofWichita.

Sources: @kelsey_ryan


The US State of Washington's state Senate’s new social media policy guidelines were published last week. One Senator joked that the restrictive policy “gets us well into the 1990s.” The policy does expand the use of social media, and allows majority Republicans, minority Democrats and all 49 senators to each have a staff-maintained Facebook and YouTube account; however, they cannot post information specifically to their Facebook accounts. Senators can only copy content from their website to their Facebook page. “Engaging in direct ‘conversation’ with others through social media (including Twitter) is not appropriate other than to provide clarifying or informational responses.”

Sources: @ubnews

Worth a look - a Washington Post DC-based reporter and bureau chief, Juliet Eilperin (@eilperin), takes a look at Obama's preference for social media outreach and online interviews vs. more traditional media interaction. What does this mean for the future of American Presidential politics? Is President Obama supplementing or bypassing the DC press corps? A tidbit: "This year alone, White House officials have posted more than 400 videos to YouTube, which have been viewed for a total of more than 174,497,605 minutes. They have produced nearly 275 infographics for WhiteHouse.gov and for social media outlets. They have also created and programmed multiple channels on Web sites ranging from BuzzFeed to Instagram and Pinterest."

Sources: @eilperin, +Innovations | The Washington Post 

Bit of fun - a new Internet meme is of the child of White House correspondent Laura Moser throwing a temper tantrum in front of the President and the First Lady at Passover dinner. 

Mexico

The Mexican Government has declared a state of emergency in Ciudad Acuña after a category 4 tornado left at least 13 people dead and hundreds wounded and homeless. City  officials, including the Mayor Armando Muruaga (@muruagag), and local organisers are using the hashtags #AcuñaNosNecesita ("Acuña needs us"), , #AcuñaEstamosContigo ("Acuña we are with you") to collect donations and additional support and to share updates.

Sources: +Mashable

About 40 percent of all Mexicans are on Facebook and it is estimated Mexicans spend an average of six hours a day on social media.

Sources: @orenzooz

 

South America

 Venezuela

Juan Carlos Alemán (@aleman72psuv), a legislator in Venezuela, told television viewers last week that the Government had launched two space satellites in May. One of the satellites will be used in the development of a government server to control what Venezuelans see on the Internet. An additional project in which the satellite might be involved is "Red Patria," a group of applications that will replace external social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp with home-grown alternatives. Government Officials say the national ntworks are necessary to keep foreign governments from spying on Venezuelans. 
Sources: @francesmartel


Venezuelan National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello (@dcabellor) is under investigation in the USA for drug charges. "There is extensive evidence to justify that he is one of the heads, if not the head, of the cartel," a Justice Department official told the Wall Street Journal about Cabello. "He certainly is a main target." Given this comes just after a book by Spanish Emili J. Blasco that claims not only the current but the past Venezuelan Government have worked with drug cartels, certain sectors of Venezuelan (and American) social media is having a lot of “fun” posting memes and quips about Diosdado Cabello leadership. 

Sources: +Fox Latino

Brazil

Evany José Metzker, a 67-year-old Brazilian blogger and journalist known for investigating child prostitution and drug dealing in Brazil, was found tortured and decapitated in a rural area of the state of Minas Gerais. He had been missing for five days, and his ID, credit cards, and a check book were found near his body. “It was a barbaric crime that has shocked Minas Gerais and all of Brazil,” Kerison Lopes, president of the Minas Gerais Journalists Union said. “He was decapitated, scalped and tortured.” “Lethal violence against the Brazilian press is on the rise, impeding journalists from reporting critically on what is going on,” Carlos Lauria, the senior Americas programme coordinator of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said. “The level of violence [against journalists] in Brazil is unacceptably high.”
Sources: +The Guardian

With 65 million active users, Brazil is Facebook's largest market after the USA. Seventy-one percent of Brazilians share content on social media, and the average young Brazilian has an average of 7 social media accounts. Twenty-eight percent of Brazilians are on Twitter.

Sources: @orenzooz

Tools

 Peer 2 Peer: Challenging Extremism

While not a tool exactly, Peer 2 Peer: Challenging Extremism is a university-supported group that aims to deradicalise youth interested in online IS propaganda. The group explains on its web page, "The EdVenture Partners (EVP) and the Youth Education Committee (YEC) with the support from the U.S. Department of State are inviting interested students to participate in a global initiative P2P: Challenging Extremism (P2PCE). They will have an opportunity to build social campaign to counter online extremism and to win trip to Washington D.C. in June 2015." NPR notes the group was started by “Tony Sgro, the CEO of a San Francisco company called EdVenture Partners...Sgro is the man behind “Peer 2 Peer: Challenging Extremism,” a university-based program that is focused on competing with groups like ISIS or ISIL. The initiative brings together college students from all kinds of disciplines — from marketing to international relations to computer science — and creates a college class that gets them to dream up social media campaigns that will challenge groups like ISIS online. ”

Our Peer 2 Peer: Challenging Extremism program and Tony Sgro, founder and CEO, mentioned on NPR segment yesterday."The...
Posted by EdVenture Partners on Thursday, May 28, 2015

Social Media InfoMonitor

In an interesting development, Infodesk has introduced the Social Media InfoMonitor, a social media monitoring tool curated both automatically and by an editorial team to ensure that only the most relevant social media posts are seen by executives. Called "Social media for the C suite," the "tool" is not particularly new, but the sales pitch (directly to execs) is a bit more innovative than usual. 

Reports

Americans’ Attitudes About Privacy, Security and Surveillance

As noted above, this report came out May 20th, 2015, and looks into American views on privacy and government or private company surveillance. Some highlights: 
  • 93% of adults say that being in control of who can get information about them is important;
  • 74% feel this is “very important,” while 19% say it is “somewhat important.” 90% say that controlling what information is collected about them is important—65% think it is “very important” and 25% say it is “somewhat important.” 

  • Just 6% of adults say they are “very confident” that government agencies can keep their records private and secure, while another 25% say they are “somewhat confident.”
  • Only 6% of respondents say they are “very confident” that landline telephone companies will be able to protect their data and 25% say they are “somewhat confident” that the records of their activities will remain private and secure.
  • Credit card companies appear to instill a marginally higher level of confidence; 9% say they are “very confident” and 29% say they are “somewhat confident” their data will stay private and secure.

  • 76% of adults say they are “not too confident” or “not at all confident” that records of their activity maintained by the online advertisers who place ads on the websites they visit will remain private and secure.
  • 69% of adults say they are not confident that records of their activity maintained by the social media sites they use will remain private and secure.
  • 66% of adults say they are not confident that records of their activity maintained by search engine providers will remain private and secure.
  • 66% say they are not confident that records of their activity collected by the online video sites they use will remain private and secure.
 Some have tried to avoid surveillance with the following measures:
  • Clearing cookies or browser history (59% have done this).
  • Refusing to provide information about themselves that wasn’t relevant to a transaction (57% have done this).
  • Using a temporary username or email address (25% have done this).
  • Giving inaccurate or misleading information about themselves (24% have done this).
  • Deciding not to use a website because they asked for a real name (23% have done this).
  • 10% of adults say they have encrypted their phone calls, text messages or email.
  • 9% say they have used a service that allows them to browse the Web anonymously, such as a proxy server, Tor software, or a virtual personal network.
Many feel that companies should not keep records of their online activity.
  • 50% of adults think that online advertisers who place ads on the websites they visit should not save records or archives of their activity for any length of time.
  • 44% feel that the online video sites they use shouldn’t retain records of their activity.
  • 40% think that their search engine provider shouldn’t retain information about their activity.
  • 40% think that social media sites they use shouldn’t save data about their activity.




IC3 2014 Internet Crime Report

According to the USA's Federal Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crime Complaint Center, known as IC3, in 2014 criminals drastically increased their use of social media and any online platform related to cryptocurrenices. IC3 got 269,422 complaints that totaled in more than $800 million lost in 2014. Complaints have quadrupled in the past five years and 12% of all complaints in 2014 involved social media. Common scams include using "Like" or "Share" buttons to download malware into a person's computer. Social media was also used in doxing (releasing personally identifiable information of users), and pharming (redirecting user from legitimate to fraudulent websites). The Justice Department estimates that only 15% of US-based fraud victims actually report their crimes to law enforcement and only up to 10 percent filed a complaint via IC3's website. Read the report in Reports.





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Monday, May 18, 2015

Social media in government: 12 May to 18 May

Summary

Europe and Google continue to wrestle over the extent and implementation of the right to be forgotten ruling - some interesting stats in this week's newsletter.  The new UK Government revives the so-called "Snooper's Charter" and reforms the "Prevent" strategy (for countering online terrorism) with little friction from the non-existent opposition in Parliament. Belgium's privacy watchdog is unhappy with Facebook. The Swedish police are under examination for allegedly threatening a controversial YouTube sensation. The FYRM / Macedonia citizens are protesting after online and offline over corruption revealed in leaked wiretaps.

Ghanaian officials are mad that citizens are criticising the Government in social media. Burundi had a coup - or did it? And the (non-)revolution was Instagrammed and Tweeted. Nigerians are scamming Nigerians online when it comes to the proposed ministers in the new Government. Zimbabwe's authorities are worried about the future of journalism when it comes to social media. South African government workers are questioning their unions in social media.
Turkey is fining teachers who posted about Gezi to Facebook. Iranians and Saudi Arabians are in a Twitter propaganda war after a young woman's suicide. Israel wants more Internet scrubbing when it comes to Holocaust deniers. Egypt is angry over a Tweet from an erstwhile popular British Ambassador. IS is Tweeting the invasion in Iraq. The UAE released sisters guilty of a Twitter campaign to free their brother.

China is prosecuting a human rights lawyer who allegedly incited ethnic hatred" and "picked quarrels and provoked trouble” on Weibo. Azerbaijan will host the inaugural European Olympic Games in Baku in June - and social media activists have hijacked the hashtag to raise issues about human rights in Azerbaijan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hitting his first year in office anniversary - just as his opponent in the capital city is finishing up his first 100 days (so the hashtags and accusations are flying online.) Meanwhile Indian states are in equal measure embracing and critiquing social media branding. Nauru has still banned Facebook, despite global criticism, and their response to the debate is a Tweet. Australia passed teh 2015 budget and there is money for online counter-terrorism and social media monitoring as well as to help telcos foot the bill for saving user data for possible Government inspection. Plus an interesting look at New Zealand's dirty politics in social media (a conservative blogger and an aide to the Prime Minister. Interested? Scroll down...)

In Canada in the state of Alberta, a new Government has usurped the local powers who are shredding an awful lot of documents before they leave the office, inspiring the interest of local social media - and eventually the media. The USA may spend more money on social media counter-terrorism after a bit of an embarrassing review of their efforts thus far. Puerto Rico has a independent candidate for Governor relying entirely on social media for her support. And Jeb Bush got schooled by a University of Nevada student who is an overnight online meme. Oh, and the US President FINALLY has a personal Twitter account....

And Guatemalans are protesting corruption and still demanding their President's resignation (the VP has already resigned.)

Then a look at a tool out this summer and two nice reports on social media compliance issues in the USA and social media freedom globally.

Next week, no newsletter or blog.  


I'm travelling and I will also spend my free time trying to arrange this blog so that users can search per country. I'm not sure I can do it yet, but I have been trying my hand at simple coding and I think I'm up to the challenge. To stay current despite my week off, follow this blog on Facebook or follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me on any one of these platforms.


Europe

Google is still resisting the whole "right to be forgotten (rtbf)" ruling by the European Court of Justice. The ruling allows private (not public - though private vs. public remains to be clearly defined...) individuals to have Google remove search results related to their names. This involves "just" removing the search results - not the source material (the articles that underlie the search results. Getting a search result removed from Google akin to removing all mention of a chapter in a book's table of contents while still keeping the chapter, unchanged, where it is.) Google has fought to keep this "search delisting" country-specific. That is, the rtbf ruling would only apply to EU countries (Google.fr, Google.be) not to the general Google search (Google.com). However, European data protection regulators are of the opinion that the ruling should extend to all of Google.com. (Yes, the EU wants to regulate the Internet...or at least, the bits of the Internet that impact Europeans...so the Internet...?) A recent article in Techcrunch takes a look at Google's official reasons for permitting or refusing individual requests for search delistings and corroborates this with data from Reputation VIP (), an online reputation management company that runs the service Forget.me to help individuals file rtbf requests. Interestingly, a lot of the requests are related to social media privacy invasions and most of Google's refusals are related to requests to remove information about professional activity (which is, arguably in the public's interest and thus should not be delisted from public search.) More data:


Sources: +TechCrunch

The United Kingdom


With Theresa May as Secretary of State for the Home Department and a majority Conservative Parliament, the so-called Snooper’s Charter (the Communications Data Bill) may soon be revived, says British social media. The relevant legislation would require all Internet Service Providers to retain mobile phone and Internet records for all users for at least 12 months. 

Sources: @BetaNews

The new Conservative budget allegedly includes $35-40 million USD for counter-terrorism efforts, which will include outreach and (anti?) propaganda via social media. The UK police force is also pushing to avoid cuts affecting the regular policemen in the UK. Beat policemen are essential to keeping communities safe - including from terrorism, officials argue. The UK's counter-terrorism chief estimates that over half of the 700 British who have traveled to join IS have returned.

Sources: +Daily Mail, +The Guardian

Finally, the UK Conservative Government has noted that they will reform the "Prevent" strategy to better counter terrorism online and off. “We have already reformed the Prevent strategy so that it focuses on non-violent as well as violent extremism. We will now go even further. We will outlaw groups that foment hate with the introduction of new Banning Orders for extremist organisations. These could be applied to dangerous organisations that fall short of the existing thresholds for proscription under terrorism legislation.  To restrict the harmful activities of extremist individuals, we will create new Extremism Disruption Orders. These new powers might, for instance, prevent those who are seeking to radicalise young British people online from using the internet or communicating via social media.”

Sources: +BuzzFeed,

 

Belgium


Belgium’s privacy watchdog said. Belgium’s Privacy Protection Commission (CPVP/CBPL), proclaimed “Facebook tramples on European and Belgian privacy laws” in a statement released last week. “Facebook has shown itself particularly miserly in giving precise answers,” the Commission said. The Commission noted that the results of a study on Facebook’s privacy regulations update in January by a group of researchers were “disconcerting”. “Facebook is already regulated in Europe and complies with European data protection law, so the applicability of the CBPL’s efforts are unclear,” a spokeswoman from Facebook responded. 

Sources: +tech2 

Sweden

In Sweden, a native of Somali descent known for dressing up as a policeman and making sensationalist YouTube videos mocking how Swedish police racially profile citizens like himself made a video claiming that, after his last staged incident, Swedish police took him into the woods and threatened him. Swedish police officials claim that they are investigating his claims.

Sources: +BBC Trending

 

Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia / Macedonia

Macedonians gathered in the capital Skopje Sunday to demand the resignation of the current Prime Minister. Macedonian social media has been very critical of the release of wiretapped conversations of the opposition party head (mentioned in this blog in late March.) The conversations demonstrate widespread corruption across all levels of Government - from the mismanagement of funds to attempted cover-ups of high crime.
Sources: +The Guardian 

 

Africa

 

Ghana

In Ghana, officials have complained that netizens are using social media to criticise the President. Authorities in the Presidential office have said that this sort of criticism is disrespectful, often engaging with netizens in arguments that only result in more netizen frustration with the Ghanaian Presidency. However, democracy advocates feel that the Government of Ghana might just be a little too sensitive - and a little to quick to react in a negative manner to social media commentary. “Once you open yourself up for such an engagement [in social media], you should be prepared to receive what people will say. I’m not suggesting that people should use that platform to insult the President or insult officials at the Presidency but so long as people are engaging with issues, so long as people are expressing their views which may be contrary from what is coming from the Presidency, I don’t see anything wrong or I don’t see that to be a disrespect,” Head of Programmes at the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Dr. Franklin Oduro, explained in an interview with Citi News.

Sources: @CDDGhana, @TheGhanaWeb

 

Burundi

A potential coup unfolded in the troubled state of Burundi (and then folded back up again.) There, as covered in this blog last week and the week before, the two-term President Pierre Nkurunziza (@PierreNkurunziz) wanted to stand for an un-Constitutional third term. Protests erupted throughout the country, many organised (and promoted globally) via social networks like Facebook,Twitter and Whatsapp. Nkurunziza moved to shut down all social networks to forestall further protests. Despite that, “I do think that the revolution has, in fact, been tweeted,” said Cara Jones (@ProfCaraJones), an assistant professor of political science at Mary Baldwin College and an expert on Burundi. Burundi's Maj. Gen. Godefroid Nyiombare announced last Wednesday that he was relieving the President of his leadership, a message that trended globally on social media. Nkurunziza was out of the country at the time and failed to return for a few days, prompting the hashtag #WhereisNkurunziza. Nkurunziza’s Administration responded to Nyiombare's coup via a Tweet and a Facebook post asking the people of Burundi to remain calm.
#Sindumuja (“I will not be a slave”) has been the call to action for protestors in Burundi. Meanwhile terms like #Burundi, #WhereisNkurunziza, #stopkurunziza ,#burundiprotest, and #Nkurunziza provide up the minute news. 
Communiqué de Presse : Coup d’Etat fantaisisteC’est avec regret que nous avons appris qu’un groupe de militaires s’est...
Posted by Présidence - République du Burundi on Wednesday, May 13, 2015

A reporter of Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter newspaper, Erik Esbjornsson (@Esbjornsson) has documented images the so-far “attempted" coup on his Instagram account here. Esbjornsson has been on the ground in Burundi’s capital since the initial protests against President Nkurunziza began. He made it clear to followers that one image or even hundreds of images are not enough to understand the “very complex, insecure situation” in which Burundi finds itself.  “This conflict right now is about a president that some people think is not respecting the Constitution. This is about democracy and respect for that constitution so far,” Bjornsson told followers. “Of course, when you have a deterioration of the state, it may turn to groups [referencing Burundi’s history of ethnic violence.] But it's not part of this conflict at all yet. People are simply very upset that Nkurunziza is running for a third term.” After Thursday’s attempted coup, Esbjornsson says, “now it seems like the president will have the upper hand again….I want to stress: This is a lot more complicated than when you first look at it,” he says. “You've had a protest against a very specific decision. Now it's turning into something completely different.”

Sources: @ProfCaraJones, @TEDDYMAZINA, @viewfromthecave, @Esbjornsson

 

Nigeria

Nigerians have been circulating a purported ministerial list on social media that the newly elected All Progressives Congress (APC) has recently denounced as misleading. "The party has described as a mere fiction the ministerial lists currently being circulated, especially on the Social Media....Nigerians should disregard these lists and await the authentic list which will be communicated through the appropriate channels at the right time," the party noted.

 

Zimbabwe

Information, Media and Broadcasting Services principal director Mr Regis Chikowore said that social media is a major threat to the newspaper industry (news flash.) Chikowore spoke at the slightly late World Press Freedom Day events in Harare last Friday. "If anybody who can read and write can pass for a journalist, doesn't this pose a threat to the existence of journalism as a profession? As we celebrate Press freedom, journalists should start to reflect on the future of their profession," Chikowore explained to audience members from the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Zimbabwe National Editors Forum, Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe, Unesco Regional Office for Southern Africa and journalism students.

Sources: +AllAfrica Global Media

 

South Africa

South African government employees will find out this week if their unions have accepted a government wage increase offer. Throughout the last few days, workers from across South African agencies flooded social media sites with questions about whether or not they were getting an increase at all in 2015.  Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC)'s Frikkie De Bruin (@pscbcnews) finally used Twitter to address concerns that the negotiations had collapsed. “It's a package(d) deal. We need to agree on all. But GEHS is at this point the sticky area,” After seven months of negotiations, Tuesday will reveal if an agreement has finally been achieved.

Sources: @Theto_Thakane

 

 

Middle East

Turkey

On his Facebook page in 2013, Adana teacher Bülent Ecevit Özhan posted a meme quoting Plato: "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Özhan posted this and other images to his social media criticising the Turkish Prime Minister, and for his efforts, the teacher received a fine of TRY 7,080 (USD 2,748) for insulting then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. His fellow teacher Kadir Can Gök als received a fine for calling Erdoğan "dishonorable" and a "laughingstock." This past Saturday, the Education Personnel Union (Eğitim-Sen) protested the fines. President of the Adana branch of the union Ahmet Karagöz said that the fines were just attempts by the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) to discredit Turkish citizens that participated in the Gezi protests.

Sources: +Bgn News

In Istanbul last Friday, the Kimse Yok Mu (“Is Anyone There?”) Foundation (@kym_en) hosted the international conference Social Media for Good. (#socialmedia4good). Andrei Abramov, the former chief of the NGO branch of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), delivered the keynote at the conference. Zainul Abid Kottakulath of BBC News India presented “Hashtags of Hope: How Social Media has transformed the World into a Better Place” highlighting how social media can shed light on under-reported issues. Kottakulath also discussed how The Facebook Safety Check has helped users in and around disaster areas let their loved ones know that they are safe. Professor Jaishankar Karuppan of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University spoke about the role of Social Media for NGOs working to create awareness around and prevent online victimization. In response to a question about trolling and Turkish legislation, Karuppan replied, “I think that some governments are against citizens who are politically active. It is something that happens in the US as well, when people like [Edward] Snowden reveal government secrets. [It depends] on who is tagging on which side of the fence. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and this carries over online. So probably, what the activist is doing, the government sees as an attack.”


Sources: +Todays Zaman, +Kimse Yok Mu 


Iran

In Iran early this month, a young woman allegedly threw herself from the upper story window of a (now in-) famous hotel. The woman supposedly committed suicide after having been raped by the hotel's manager and some unnamed government authorities. Iranian political activists the set the hotel on fire and shared the images in protest with the hashgtag (Iran is burning). Then, Iran's geographical and ideological rival, Saudi Arabia, reportedly hijacked the hash tag last week and flooded the social media with false and anachronistic photos of Iran in turmoil.


Sources: +BBC Trending

 

Israel

The Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism (GFCA) met last week and called for all Holocaust denial websites to be scrubbed from the Internet and for the omission of “hate websites and content” from all search results. “Convened by the Foreign Ministry and the Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Ministry….[the GFCA] is a biennial gathering bringing together Jewish community leaders, civil society representatives and diplomats to discuss ways to grapple rising levels of anti-Jewish prejudice.” The Forum’s output document asked that social media and Internet companies in general create a “clear industry standard for defining hate speech and anti-Semitism.” It also requested that Governments  determine“global terms of service prohibiting the posting of hate speech and anti-Semitic materials.” Specifically, the Forum asked the European Union to adopt a formal definition of anti-Semitism that includes “unambiguous reference to attacks on the legitimacy of the State of Israel and its right to exist and Holocaust denial as forms of anti-Semitism.”

Sources: +Jerusalem Post 

 

Egypt

John Casson (@FCOJohnCasson) is the UK Ambassador to Egypt. Young and generally charismatic, he's been popular in Egyptian social media - until now. His Tweet about a job available at the British Embassy took a jab at a local political controversy and earned him the ire of his Egyptian constituents. "Do you want to work at the British Embassy?" he tweeted in Arabic. "We welcome all applicants, even the sons of rubbish collectors." The sensitive issue? Egypt's justice minister, Mahfouz Saber, resigned earlier this week after he sparked outrage in response to an interviewer's question if the son of a rubbish collector could become a judge. According to the BBC, "Saber said that the judiciary should be 'lofty and have status' and that judges had to come from 'a respectable milieu'...'Meddling in Egyptian internal affairs is not acceptable, not even jokingly,' tweeted one Egyptian. Another tweeted: 'They occupied our country for years and killed our people and made us poor and they think they have the luxury of making fun of us' - a reference to British rule which ended in 1952. An Arabic hashtag (#اطردوا_السفير_البريطاني) which called for Casson to be expelled has been used thousands of times. But other Egyptians took a different view. After all, one commented, "it was a joke". Another expressed his exasperation at the current government: 'Expel the British Ambassador from Egypt…and expel me with him please'...Would you give the son of garbage collector a tourist visa though? Or the son of any other Egyptian?' one asked." The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office responded to criticism rather than Casson, "The specific comment was a show of support for the idea that an individual's family background should not prevent them from applying for any job. We have a very talented group of local staff in Cairo and we hope this generates even more interest amongst local communities to join us in building strong ties between the UK and Egypt."

Sources: +BBC Trending, @FCOJohnCasson

 

Iraq

IS militants attacked Ramadi and succeeded in taking control of allegedly 60% of the city. The IS militants reportedly used body cameras to photograph their invasion, and the images now litter militant accounts on Instagram and elsewhere. These images and others have been used as propaganda to further the image of IS among existing and potential recruits, experts suggest. "This is similar to the (techniques) they've used in the past where they've conducted attacks trying to gain social media gains by taking photos and documenting small-term gains and then using it for propaganda purposes," said Marine Brig. Gen. Thomas D. Weidley, chief of staff for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the international campaign fighting IS.

Sources: +Mirror, +Business Insider UK

 

United Arab Emirates

This past Friday, three sisters - Asma, Mariam and Alyaziyah al-Suwaidi - were released from prison after having been jailed since February of this year for using Twitter to campaign to have their brother released from prison. Their brother, Issa al-Suwaidi, was convicted for links to a pro-Muslim Brotherhood group, outlawed as a terrorist organisation in Egypt.

Sources: +Mail & Guardian Africa

 

Asia

 

China

Pu Zhiqiang, a celebrated human rights lawyer that represented dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (@aiww), was finally charged last Friday after having been held for a year in detention. Pu was charged with  "inciting ethnic hatred" and "picking quarrels and provoking trouble” on Weibo.  The charges carry a maximum jail sentences of 10 and five years respectively, and stem from 28 posts he published to Weibo in 2014. Pu used Weibo to question the Chinese state media's referral to a "terrorist" attack in a largely Muslim province and suggested that the Chinese Government was "lying." In the past year, Pu’s wife wrote that the lawyer has been tortured psychologically and physically, while US State Department officials and Amnesty International have asked that China release Pu. China has refused. 

Sources: +Yahoo News,  +The New York Times, @ChuBailiang

 

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan will host the inaugural European Olympic Games in Baku in June. Social media users have hijacked the European Olympic Committees (EOC) @EOCEUOffice hashtag  #Baku2015 for the games to highlight the repressive political environment in Azerbaijan. Users hope to pressure the EOC into requesting that the nearly one hundred human rights activists, journalists, bloggers and civil society representatives in jail for criticising the Government be released. “EOC leadership has so far maintained a public silence in the face of serious abuse and repression by Azerbaijan’s government against its critics,” said Jane Buchanan, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. During a May hearing in the European Parliament, the EOC vice president, Janez Kocijancic, stated that the EOC “cannot accept political engagements,” but that the EOC will use “whatever influence we have to make this society better and more open.”



Sources: @KooyJan, +Human Rights Watch

 

India 

As of May 26th, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) will have finished one year in office. Just two days before - May 24th - Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) will have completed his first 100 days as leader of the Indian capital Delhi's Government. Kejriwal is often called the "Muffler Man," a name his critics gave him and then his supporters appropriated. The hashtags have arrived accordingly and the most popular depends on which party you prefer: #100DaysOfMufflerMan (Kejriwal 's Aam Aadmi Party - AAP - about his work), #100DaysOfAnarchy (Modi's BJP party about Kejriwal), #JumlaDiwas (AAP to make fun of Modi).



Sources: +India NewsTV 

The government of the Indian state of Punjab has hired a firm to promote its policies and ministers both online and offline. The government's supposed targets focus on output rather than impact; the firm must allegedly produce 35 tweets, 14 Facebook posts, nine blog posts, seven videos and seven Facebook graphics each week for the next two years. The Delhi-based OMLogic (@OMLogic) runs a Facebook page, a Twitter account (@PunjabGovtIndia), a Wordpress blog and, in the future, a WhatsApp account for the Punjabi government.

Sources:  @PunjabGovtIndia

The Uttar Pradesh Government will set up two social media labs to monitor online discussion for potential crimes and unrest that could lead to violence. The labs will be located in Lucknow and Meerut and be run by experts from the Indian Institutes of Information Technology.  "Social media is a very important means of expressing opinion publicly and it is important for us to know what is going on," Anil Agarwal, who looks after UP state police IT projects, explained, adding that social media discussions can impact the law and order of the state. Social media content has contributed to riots and ethnic attacks.

Sources: +Zee News

The Punjab Congress Party plans to confront the Aam Aadmi Party and SAD-BJP on social media through dedicated IT cells in all districts. Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa said, "The online campaigns will be put on place in the run up to the next assembly elections across platforms - Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp." A similar social-media savvy approach worked very well in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections for the Aam Aadmi Party, which used volunteer social media cells to update voters on Facebook pages and WhatsApp.

Sources: @vibhor_mohan, +The Times of India

The Arunachal Government warned netizens to stop abusing social media. “Individuals and groups using fake IDs have been spreading concocted and misleading information in the social media especially Facebook targeting influential personalities in the government. There have been deliberate attempt to defame and malign the image of personalities and the government to create chaos in the society,” a Government spokesperson told the press.There are evidences of using the social media to create communal hatred and disharmony in the State which has been seriously taken note of by the State Government. The State Government has directed the State Police and IT agencies to keep a close vigil to unearth all the fake ID users in the social media and take serious actions (against persons involved in such malpractices) as per the IT Act and relevant sections under IPC.” The same spokesperson - a Mr. Bamang Felix - noted that  “recently, a fake account holder had posted a wrong and malicious post claiming Government Spokesperson and Parliamentary Secretary Education, IPR and Printing Bamang Felix to have resigned from his post owing to distorted facts which was apparently published in one of the regional newspaper too.”

Sources: +The Assam Tribune 

Want to know what benefits come from monitoring social media? Find a few very strong examples here in this article about Indian Prime Minister Modi's Government. After hearing negative chatter about Chinese incursions in the Ladakh region, the External Affairs Ministry issued a conciliatory statement that mollified critics. Later, when opposition accused Modi online of privileging Hindus, Modi appeared at a Church and reinforced Indians' "inalienable right" to choose their own religion. The Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry's New Media wing releases two monitoring reports a day - one in the morning and one in the evening. As one official there said, “Our job is to provide the social media analysis to the Cabinet Secretariat and the PMO. We stop at that. It is for them to act or not act upon it.”
Sources: +The Indian Express, @iyervaidy

 

Nauru

“We’re concerned by reports of recent internet restrictions imposed by the government of Nauru, including that they blocked Facebook and other social media sites,” US Department of State press officer Jeff Rathke told reporters. Nauru, as mentioned before in this blog, has removed the head of its telecommunications provider Digicell and banned Facebook in the island nation, also (temporary?) home to many refugees. Meanwhile, Australia is staying quiet (possibly related to Australian development aid in return for help with refugee detention?), and the Nauru President Baron Waqa not-so-subtly Tweeted last Wednesday that others should butt out of Nauruan business. 
Sources: @FarrellPF, +The Guardian

 

Australia

Australia announced its 2015 budget, and the Australian social media is a-Twitter with reactions () from the Government and netizens. The Government will provide $131 million to telecommunication companies and internet service providers to help them adapt to the new data retention laws (covered in this blog in late March.)  In addition, budget has been further allocated to monitor and analyse social media chatter for counter-terrorism efferots. “This measure will challenge terrorist organisations’ lies and propaganda online. This will make it harder for terrorist groups to attract vulnerable Australians, particularly young Australians, through the internet and social media,” Prime Minister Abbott said.

Here are a few reactions to the Australian 2015 budget as a whole:

Sources: +The Australian 

The Australian Government has announced plans to invest in defense in light of IS terrorist threats abroad and at home. The 2015 budget will include:
  • $131  million will be provided to assist telecommunications companies upgrade their infrastructure to allow metadata to be stored for two years, to track terrorist chatter.
  • $22 million committed to combating terrorist propaganda online and countering violent extremism.
Sources: +9 News

Australian customs officers are reviewing their procedures after movie star Johnny Depp arrived in the country on his private plane and failed to declare his two terriers. Their presence was only incidentally revealed after the two dogs were groomed by an Australian dog groomer who bragged about the celebrity clients online. The Australian government ordered that the two dogs be placed in quarantine and then sent back to the USA within 3 days. "Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce (@Barnaby_Joyce) has said the pampered pets have to 'bugger off' home to Hollywood or they will be put down." The social media trend #WarOnTerrier accumulated all sorts of discussion from how wealth and privilege should not impact how customs affects you to debate over how Australia treats immigrants.

Sources: +The Sydney Morning Herald

New Zealand

Last year, New Zealand had a rough time when it came to social media and the national Government. In a book called Dirty Politics, published in August 2014, it was revealed that one of the country's most controversial (and most popular) bloggers, right-wing activist Cameron Slater, conspired with the Prime Minister's social media-savvy "spin doctor" and then secretarial aid Jason Ede to target opposition in the 2011 elections. The book and other sources suggest that the partnership extended post-election and that Ede made use of public funds to further his political master's personal goals. Ede resigned earlier this year, but his replacement does not seem to be changing tactics or tone in his use of social media - and public money - to play politics rather than public servant.  Yet there is a lot of suggestion online and off that social media political discourse is a tempest in a tea cup - a "media clique" - when it comes to actual Kiwi politics. This is an interesting article which sums up in links and in content all the most recent debate on this big - or small - depending to which camp you subscribe - issue.
 
Sources: @bryce_edwards

 

North America

Canada

In the Canadian province of Alberta, the Progressive Conservatives have been ousted from the government for the first time in 12 governments. The (unexpectedly) newly in charge New Democratic Party is scrambling to put together a budget. Meanwhile, the trending hashtag for the region is (Alberta legislature) and most of the images being shared are of the mounds of shredded documents the Progressive Conservatives are sending to the (we hope) recycling bin before their rivals take office. There have been several comments and criticism online and offline that, while it's normal to shred a bit of paper when the government changes hands, the amount being shredded here might be a bit too much. Netizens have asked, what are they trying to hide? Meanwhile the incoming Government is initiating an investigation into what is being shredded - hopefully nothing affected by the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act (FOIP.) FOIP "does not apply to the personal records of ministers, or an MLA's correspondence with constituents, but does apply to departmental records and cabinet records" Jill Clayton, the Information and Privacy Commissioner explained.
Sources: @DonBraid, +CBC News 

 

USA

The US President finally got his (for now?) personal account. The account is @POTUS (a short name commonly used for President of the United States.)

Of course, we're assuming (as is Bill) that this account stays with the office.


The US State Department Twitter account for the counter-terrorism movement "Thing Again, Turn Away" is under fire from Slate. The webzine pointed out that the official Twitter account for the programme (@ThinkAgain_DOS) linked to a rather thin story from the UK's Daily Mail last week. And not for the first time - the account has even linked to an old, thoroughly debunked article about a planned IS genital mutilation of 2 million girls. The article continues, "Given how many well-documented instances of ISIS’s barbarity there are, it doesn’t seem necessary to promote dubious rumors. The government doesn’t enhance its credibility (which is presumably already pretty minimal with the audience its trying to reach) by endorsing easily debunkable information. It’s also discouraging to see the U.S. government endorse such shoddy work given the difficulty and risks faced by journalists trying to document what’s really happening in Syria." The story pointed out the Congress is a bit embarrassed by current US anti-terrorism efforts online and that they plan to fund an overhaul of the approach (as mentioned in last week's blog.)
Sources: @joshuakeating, +Slate

Alexandra Lúgaro (@AlexandraLugar0), the first independent candidate for governor of Puerto Rico, plans to rely on social networks to promote her image and her issues. Puerto Rico has been controlled by a two-party system for decades, so Lúgaro, a 33-year-old attorney, will need a lot of promotion before the elections for governor in November 2016. Lúgaro plans to focus on the economy, including renegotiating the island's debt, and the Cabotage Law, which requires all goods transported to Puerto Rico must be in US-flagged and manufactured ships.

Sources: +Fox News Latino, @AlexandraLugar0

The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) began its official presence on Facebook and Twitter (@PADOH) just last week. The goal of the social media sites is to provide the public with up to date public health information. 

Sources: @PADOH

Officially Jeb Bush has not declared his US Presidential candidacy despite going on a trip across the USA to promote his non-candidacy. At a town hall-style meeting in Reno, Nevada, he let slip that he would run for President, quickly recovering by restating "if" he runs for President in 2016. What threw him off? It could have been a young college student who questioned his foreign policy towards IS. “A Bush was trying to blame ISIS on Obama’s foreign policy — it was hilarious,” said the student, Ivy Ziedrich (@IvyZied), who attends the University of Nevada. “It was like somebody crashing their car and blaming the passenger.” Ziedrich confronted Bush with, "Your brother created ISIS." Her confrontation became in Internet meme and a viral video.

Sources: +CNN

U.S. Representative  Loretta Sanchez, running to represent a district in California, let out an excited Native American "war cry" over the weekend. A constituent filmed the action on his cell phone and shared it via social media, prompting the Representative to issue a public apology in which she emphasised her Native American roots.

Sources +CNN

A California bill providing guidelines to judges on when to order electronic providers to turn over electronic information to the executor or administrator of an estate (so after someone dies) passed the state Assembly last week. These guidelines, if and when they become law, will determine what happens to the social media of Californians after they die.

Sources: +Monterey Herald

 

Central America

Guatemala

Guatemalans filled the streets this past Saturday (again) to protest corruption and to demand that  President Otto Perez Molina (@ottoperezmolina) resign (again). "Vice President Roxana Baldetti was forced to resign a week ago amid an uproar over her private secretary being singled out by authorities as the alleged ringleader" of a customs bribery scheme that allegeldy involves 50 private citzens and public servants. Baldetti has not been charged and she denies any part in the scheme. These protests were organised via social media (again.)



Sources: +Wall Street Journal



Tools

TownSquare

A start-up out of Canada led by university student and serial entrepreneur Quinn Taylor (@TaylorQuinn92) aims to re-engineer how politicians, government authorities, and citizens interact online. “TownSquare sets out to democratize democracy by encouraging dialogue between government officials and citizens,” Quinn said in a phone interview with The Chronicle Hearld last Monday. “We built a platform that will allow government officials, politicians and citizens to engage in a two-way dialogue in ways they can’t now.... We’re planning to roll out our (test) this week and we’re hoping to sign initial contracts with political parties and municipal governments in mid-June...We understand the timeliness of what we’re working on, given the upcoming election in Canada this year and the upcoming election in the U.S. next year.”

Sources: +The Chronicle Herald, @entrevestor


Reports

The State of Social Media Infrastructure: Part 3- A Compliance Analysis of Fortune 100 Social Media Infrastructure

This report looks at how Fortune 100 firms in the USA are managing to - well - not ensure that social media coming from their companies and their employees complies with federal regulations. The analysts for the report looked at social media content from over 32,000 social accounts of Fortune 100 firms. 

Key findings:
  • The average firm suffered from a total of 69 unmoderated compliance incidents that went virtually unnoticed by internal compliance staff 
  • Financial Services firms accounted for the largest incident volume with over 5000 incidents (over 250 per firm)
  • Nine different U.S. regulatory standards triggered incidents.  A few examples include FINRA Retail Communications, FFIEC / Regulation Z, FTC Sweepstakes, and SEC Regulation FD, and FDA Adverse Drug Experience
  • Best practice social media compliance controls are inconsistently enforced with only 47% of brand posts made via Marketing and Content Publishing applications

The report also provides a taxonomy of common incidents with real-world examples, and suggests steps that organisations can take to better manage social media compliance.

Freedom on the Net 2014 by Freedom House

This report looks at how freedom on the net is decreasing, citing examples in which largely youth netizens are targeted by Governments for using social media to criticise - or sometimes merely share controversial content - on the Internet. Pakistan comes across as particularly violent, having silently sanctioned the murders of a woman who merely possessed mobile phone a mother and her daughters who were caught on camera playing in the rain and then shared the video.
Check out scores per country in this interactive graphic here.

Some major trends:
  • Between May 2013 and May 2014, 41 countries passed or proposed legislation to penalize legitimate forms of speech online, increase government powers to control content, or expand government surveillance capabilities.
  • Of the 65 countries studied in Freedom on the Net 2014, 19 passed new legislation that increased surveillance or restricted user anonymity.
  • More people were detained or prosecuted for their digital activities in the past year than ever before.
  • Bans on online dissent are increasing.
  • There is expanded power for state regulators in many countries with regard to social media engagement by individuals.
  • Online defamation is increasingly criminalised (and increasingly broad in scope when defined.)
  • There is more and more content blocking without court orders in several countries.
  • Some new laws impose criminal liability on intermediaries like ISPs and content-hosting platforms.
Emerging threats:
  • Data localization, by which private companies are required to maintain data storage centers within a given country to allow for greater government control.
  • A harsh environment for women and members of the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,and intersex) community, who are both under-represented online and disproportionately harassed for their online activities. 
  • Lack of cybersecurity for human rights activists and political opposition members, who have increasingly been targeted with technical attacks and spying by repressive governments
Sources: @FreedomHouseDC

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