Social media in government: 12 January to 18 January

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more, follow @Linda_Margaret on Twitter.

What is 'digitally literate' when it comes to big organisations?

I read and write a bit about digital literacy here - how investment in information and technology communication (ICT) infrastructure is useless without investment in the people who are supposed to use it.

That said, I've watched the whole Zunzuneo fiasco with a bit of indignant resignation. How did they not see that coming? Was it a dearth of digital literacy within the organisation? Let me try to explain what I mean....

What happened with ZunZuneo? 

All I know is what I've read, but it appears that the USA government (or some agency thereof) funded a fake social media network for Cuban citizens, called ZunZuneo, with the aim of encouraging free speech and potentially/particularly (depending on which media you are reading) free speech that was critical of the existing Cuban government.

There is a lot of debate whether this was a covert project (with the ultimate aim of changing/challenging the current Cuban regime) or whether ZunZuneo was less ambitiously radical and more ... well, if not transparent, then simply opaque.

Nevertheless, the USA has gotten a lot of internal and external criticism when it comes to social networking and social media recently - from privacy violations to propaganda allegations to general naive screw-ups.

As to whether my country's government is more prone to social media mess-ups or just more prone to relevant criticism (some might argue the USA is no worse and in some ways better than other governments when it comes to using, abusing, and / or regulating social media), the revelations about US involvement in ZunZuneo were, in a public relations sense, a bad thing for the old US of A government.

What does it have to do with digital literacy? 

It's not enough that citizens be digitally literate and capable of understanding and using the ICT infrastructure available to them. Governments and their ilk need to be digitally literate as well.

No, I don't mean in a "wag the dog" sort of way (though De Niro knows, there's enough of that flying around. ZunZuneo is probably the least - and potentially, at least now, one of the least effective - examples of it.)

I mean in a sort of user-friendly, give the people what they need and want in an easy-to-access, easy-to-use way. Listen to the people you want to love you and, hopefully, your ideas. Take a page out of Apple, Google, or yes, even - at times - Microsoft's playbook. Invest in usability testing, invest in surveys, invest in your users (or the people you want to become your users). Make sure you give them what they want, digitally-speaking, rather than what you think they'd like.

Digital literacy is being useful.

Don't develop tools that sound good in theory, pay attention to what people are using in practice. If what you build is something users love (and citizens do love a good government service - when it is in fact a real service), then they won't care who is funding it or why it's really being funded or if it is 'sexy' (horrible, over-used marketing word.) Your beloved users will, for the most part, appreciate that the digital product or service offered is useful and easy-to-use. Congratulations, you've achieved digital literacy.

Be useful. That's easy. Why don't we do it more often? 

There is in government, as in any organisation or group, a desire to control the message, to spend money effectively constructing an idea, a message, that you, the message-maker, want to convey, and then embedding this, your Important Message, at the forefront of any product you put out, from a speech to a YouTube video to a PDF flier (printed offline or, sadly, uploaded online as well - because isn't that what all web users want? Downloadable fliers?)

And that's not a bad idea (that is, embedding your message in all you do is not a bad idea - downloadable fliers are a horrible idea), it's just not user-centric. And digital literacy is all about being user-centric. Build the product the people want and then figure out how to convey your message as a part of, around - or even after - that. Your message is (almost) never what will sell your service.

People are much more willing to listen after they've been heard. And this counts double when you are acting in the public interest. Show the relevant public you are interested in them first. Then ask them to reciprocate.

So back to ZunZuneo...

I shouldn't be so critical. After all, while I try to be part of the solution, I've not always avoided contributing to the problem. (I have, in fact, uploaded downloadable fliers.)

ZunZuneo probably sounded like a fantastic idea in some back room policy chamber where a bright-eyed bipartisan is working hard to improve the world in the way s/he thinks it needs improvement.

But where-ever it came from, I'm pretty sure ZunZuneo producers didn't first look at the Cubans as users, analysing what they wanted and needed and what service or product would be most likely to fulfil those needs in such a way as to render the message at best, a bonus, and, at worse, a nuisance (like those sponsored ads on Facebook, yes? Updates from my friends along with annoying recommended pages or games nobody cares about - but someone must or Facebook would make less money.)

How do the Cubans want to see world improvement in their day-to-day lives? That's the service they'll buy or the product they'll hang on to, even if it turns out to be funded by an organisation not entirely in agreement with the Cuban political agenda. (Yes, we all love our privacy and want companies to respect it, but how many of us still have Facebook, YouTube, Google, Yahoo....?) Give them this service or product, be useful, be digitally-literate.

Then when you slot in your message, they'll be listening. Because you already heard them.