Social media in government: 9 February to 15 February 2015

Twitter released its biannual transparency report Monday. Quick stats:

• the number of requests for user information in the second half of 2014 went up 40%
• Twitter received 2,871 requests for 7,144 user accounts
• Twitter cooperated with 52% of requests
• more than half of government requests came from the United States
• the biggest increases in requests came from Russia and Turkey
• Twitter did not cooperate with Russia and Turkey on any of their requests.

Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Bitly, Dropbox, and Yahoo! have joined forces with ThreatExchange, a social network for cybersecurity experts to share information. ThreatExchange was developed from an internal Facebook network designed for “cataloguing threats in real time.” The page for the network notes, “[t]he beauty of working together on security. When one company gets stronger, so do the rest of us.”

Tuesday was Safer Internet Day (#SaferInternetDay #SID2015). Campaigns focused on how to improve the Internet for children and adults.

The United Nations Population Fund ran a social media campaign this Valentine’s Day (14 February) to encourage users to say #Idont to child brides.

Europe and US tech companies continue to debate the extent to which individuals have “the right to be forgotten.” The Google Advisory Council published a report that stated the following with regard to the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) decision that Europeans have the right to ask Google to remove links about them from search, “The Ruling is not precise about which versions of search a delisting must be applied to. Google has chosen to implement these removals from all its European-directed search services, citing the CJEU’s authority across Europe as its guidance. The Council understands that it is a general practice that users in Europe, when typing in www.google.com to their browser, are automatically redirected to a local version of Google’s search engine. Google has told us that over 95% of all queries originating in Europe are on local versions of the search engine. Given this background, we believe that delistings applied to the European versions of search will, as a general rule, protect the rights of the data subject adequately in the current state of affairs and technology." Meanwhile, Andrus Ansip, the EU vice president in charge of the digital single market, stated at the Google-sponsored Startup Europe Summit in Berlin that he felt the ECJ ruling should apply globally.  Neither opinion is binding - yet.

In the UK, a Parliamentary report looking into rising hate speech online and off suggested banning offenders from social networks with an "internet asbos." The report suggested, “There is an allowance in the law for banning or blocking individuals from certain aspects of internet communication in relation to sexual offences. Informal feedback we have received from policy experts indicates that this is a potential area of exploration for prosecutors in relation to hate crime...if it can be proven in a detailed way that someone has made a considered and determined view to exploit various online networks to harm and perpetrate hate crimes against others then the accepted principles, rules and restrictions that are relevant to sex offences must surely apply.” In the UK, Jews are eight times as likely and Muslims are three times as likely to be victims of religious hatred as Christians.

The British-based NGO Faith Matters fired a Rabbi representative for Tweets last Monday. The NGO, dedicated to reducing interfaith tensions, fired Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet for controversial Tweets about Palestinians. “A few tweets made by Rabbi Schochet have taken very strong positions which have led to difficulties for us." Difficulties allegedly include threats from some funders to withdraw financing for the NGO following the Rabbi's social media statements.

The French government issued a decree that requires Internet service providers (ISPs) to take down websites within 24 hours of receiving a government order. While government leaders claim this decree will help tackle terrorism, civil liberty groups argue the decree is too broad and threatens freedom of speech online.

Tuesday the volunteer Azov battalion, loyal to the Ukrainian government in Kiev, announced via Facebook that it had captured villages northeast of Mariupol.This puts the rebels closer to the Russian border.

Despite actively disdaining Twitter, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the account @RT-Erdogan to send his first signed Tweet encouraging Turks to stop smoking. “Get a grip of yourself against this poison,” Erdogan wrote, using the hashtag #SigarayaTeslimOlma (Don’t give in to cigarettes). The Twitter account, formerly run by Erdogan supporters, will now be run by Erdogan's official staff. The Turkish President will sign any Tweets that he sends out personally. 

On Wednesday, the 20-year-old Turkish student Ozgecan Aslan was raped and her body burnt by a bus driver. Her name has become a hashtag rallying Turks online and offline to protest the alleged increase in violence against women in the country.

A Turkish journalist kidnapped over a year ago by ISIS and released after 40 days of intense negotiations has just published a book about his hostage experience. The journalist, subject of a social media campaign run under the hashtag #FreeBünyaminAygün, feels that governments need to do more to protect journalists taken hostage.

Following up on the release of Australian Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste (subject of another social media campaign), his Egyptian and Canadian colleagues have also been released by the Egyptian government. The journalists were held for allegedly having published content that was "damaging to national security."

The Nigerian Governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, asked youth Saturday to use social media to engage the government in positive work. The Governor's speech was featured at the inauguration of a 1.7 km road at Umeh in Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State. The road was initiated following a Facebook post by a local citizen pointing out the poor state of roads in the area.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has restored social media as well as Internet and mobile connectivity throughout the country following public unrest after actions by President Joseph Kabila to extend his tenure in office. Citizens had been using text and social media services to organise protests against Kabila. The government claimed turning off the Internet and mobile was necessary for the security of the country, given that protests last month led to 45 deaths and over 1000 injuries.

Namibia's ICT Ministry is poised to finish the the Electronic Communication and Cybercrime Bill. The Bill aims to protect Namibians from defamatory content posted on social media. If the bill becomes law, Namibians will be able to request the removal of defamatory images and information from social networks.

Zimbabwe's Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Professor Jonathan Moyo is now on social media (Twitter @ProfJNMoyo and Facebook.) The irony of his is social media presence has been questioned given Zimbabwe's reputation for controlling the national media both online and offline. Just this same week, Professor Moyo banned journalists from sharing photos of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe tripping on the stairs at Harare International Airport after addressing party supporters who had gathered to welcome him from the African Union Summit in Ethiopia where he assumed chairmanship of the continental body. Despite the ban, photos of the fall were leaked to social media. Moyo complained, “If you go to that sacred temple in Cambodia and you take pictures of yourself nude and so forth like some French people were doing a few weeks ago, the police come, they will delete. That is an appropriate reaction, if they don’t delete they  [the journalists] deserve to be fired,” said Moyo.

The Zambian President Edgar Lungu has asked Zambians at home and abroad to be kinder to the country on social media. The statement supposedly came as a result of Zambians in the diaspora criticising the country's Draft Constitution on social media. “Some Zambians have not read the Draft Constitution but they want it like yesterday. The roadmap is definitely there but I cannot speak on the issue because I am a President,” President Lungu stated as a part of his request.

In South Africa, the State of the Nation speech (#SONA2015) was the subject of several social media conversations before, during, and after the actual event. One satirical personality asked South Africans to #CommitYourSelfie to social networks prior the speech and ask President Jacob Zuma's Government to #PayBackTheMoney (allegedly $23 million) it squandered on "upgrading" a home for Zuma. During SONA itself, members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party disrupted the speech several times before being forced out by security. Several videos of the disruptions made it to YouTube and South African social media is still buzzing about the various national scandals.

The United Arab Emirates continues to prepare for the upcoming International Government Communication Forum (#IGCF15.) The Forum will host a social media corner and social media awards for the best Tweets and Instagram photos posted per session. This past week the OECD as well as representatives of the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Community Development; the Federal Demographic Structure Council; and the Emirates Identity Authority, praised the communicative efforts of the UAE, highlighting, among other things, its outreach to citizens via social media.

In India's capital, the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) is celebrating a local election upset both in the halls of government and in social media. The opposing BJP party started the election season by taunting the AAP's chief ministerial candidate Arvind Kejriwal online for his large iconic muffler using the hashtag #Mufflerman. The AAP social media team took up the popular hashtag and turned it to Kejriwal's advantage, using the social media nickname to praise their leader's work. "Kejriwal emerged as the most influential of Delhi’s chief ministerial candidate on Twitter. In January, Kejriwal had 1.04 million mentions of his Twitter handle, far ahead of the 560,000 mentions for the BJP’s Kiran Bedi and 56,000 for the Congress’ Ajay Makan."

Vietnamese tech companies, including home-grown social networks like the now defunct Haivl.com, are finding that new national regulations could hinder or even shut down a erstwhile booming start-up scene.  The Ministry of Information and Communications shut down Haivl.com after the network featured content that the Ministry decided was "offensive to a historical figure" (Ho Chi Minh.)

In the Philippines, #ProjectAgos will host another social media workshop based on the success of its social media crisis management response during Hurricane Ruby.

The Thai Government aimed to use the hashtag #DinnerOnly to encourage Thai teens to abstain from sex this past Valentine's Day. The scheme backfired as Thai social media poked fun at the Government for its failed campaign. 

Australia celebrated Safer Internet Day with the introduction of legislation to centralise the protection of children online under the new office of the Children's e-Safety Commissioner.

While Kiwis in New Zealand celebrated #WaitangiDay online and offline, the Minister in charge of New Zealand's spies met his colleagues from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia in London (the Five Eyes). The ministers published a joint statement that claimed they plan to work together to address terrorists' use of social media to radicalise jihadists.

American President Barrack Obama attended a California summit where he signed an executive order that aims to help the private and public sector work together to address cyber threats, including the use of social media to recruit terrorists.  Obama said, "So much of our computer networks and critical infrastructure are in the private sector, which means government cannot do this alone.  But the fact is that the private sector can’t do it alone either, because it's government that often has the latest information on new threats."

In the beginning of the week, a man shot and killed three Muslim students in North Carolina, allegedly over a parking space. The man claimed via his social networks to be an atheist. The tragic deaths initiated the social media hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter (recalling the campaign #BlackLivesMatter at the end of 2014.)

President Barrack Obama also released a humorous campaign to promote healthcare.gov/ and the final sign-up date (15 February) to 18 to 34 year-olds via the top site reaching this demographic in the USA, Buzzfeed. The campaign has been widely shared (with positive and negative comments) via social media.

The USA's National Security Agency also tried to be funny during Valentine's Day be releasing a few, slightly jarring Tweets including "Every move they make, every step they take. We’ll be watching our foreign adversaries. #HappyValentinesDay from the #NSA #vday2015," and "Roses are red, violets are blue, #NSA loves privacy rights and you. Learn more from NSA's #CLPO Director http://bit.ly/1CgYRGH  #vday2015."

Venezuelans honoured protestors from the #SOSVenezuela movement one year ago using the hashtag #YoSalgoPor (I go out for...) with the reason that they choose to protest the current Venezuelan administration. 

The Internet "Hacktivist" group Anonymous continues to target ISIS, this time via social media. The group posted a list of top ISIS social media accounts to the site Pastebin, promising to take down the accounts. “We will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails, and expose you,” Anonymous explained in a YouTube video released last weekend. “From now on, no safe place for you online…you will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure.”

For more in-depth research this week, you can look at Kantar's China Social Media Impact Report. The report includes data from 13,341 online user surveys in China, as well as face-to-face interviews and text-mining of Weibo and WeChat posts.

For more, follow @Linda_Margaret on Twitter.

Social media in government: 2 February to 8 February 2015

In response to the latest images of its victims released by ISIS on social media, online activists have asked users to share photos of the victims doing their jobs or living their lives rather than share the ISIS images of their deaths. Follow the hashtags #IamKenji, #WeAreAllMuath, #JeSuisMoath, #IamMuath for more. 

A 2010 Tweet posted by the Japanese victim Kenji Goto is trending this week. The Tweet, originally in Japanese, translates as "Closing my eyes and holding still. It's the end if I get mad or scream. It's close to a prayer. Hate is not for humans. Judgment lies with God. That's what I learned from my Arabic brothers and sisters." Jordanian royal family members joined other Jordanians and Japanese at the Japanese Embassy in Jordan for a vigil, captured on social media. 

In Ecuador, Diana Amores and Carlos Andres Vera, two critics of Correa's government, have noted that Correa is allegedly paying a Barcelona, Spain company, Ares Rights SL, to ask Twitter to suspend social media accounts critical of his government for violations of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The company finds Tweets and images shared by Correa's critics that include logos and images owned by political parties and report these to Twitter as in violation of the US DMCA. The offending accounts are then suspended while Twitter investigates the complaints.

Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner used Twitter to poke fun at the Chinese leadership's accent - how Chinese can sometimes mix up "l's" and "r's". Accused of racism at a moment when Argentina needs Chinese goodwill (Argentina needs Chinese money), President Kirchner then Tweeted a "non-apology" that defended her sense of humour.

The US-based social network Reddit published is first-ever transparency report. The report was short - Reddit does not collect much user data and deletes all IP addresses it stores every 90 days. 

Will Stevens, the Spokesperson for the US Embassy in Russia earned a few local chuckles when he conducted a poll on Twitter. Stevens asked Twitter users which they trusted more, The Economist or RT, Russia's English-language news channel. So far, RT is winning by a landslide.

Americans Marc and Debra Tice with the journalist-advocacy group Reporters Without Borders have launched a social media campaign to pressure the US and Syria to save their son, journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive outside Damascus in 2012. The campaign asks users to use the hashtag #freeaustintice and upload images of themselves in blindfolds. As of 16 February, more than 250 news sites will carry digital banners calling for Austin's release in a project Reporters Without Borders called “a first in U.S. media history.”

A social media and Indiegogo fundraising campaign by the photographer, Brandon Stanton, behind "Humans of New York" resulted in a visit to the White House for one of his young subjects, Vidal Chastanet. Chastanet caught the photographer's ear when he said his hero was his principal, Nadio Lopez, who a the time aimed to raise enough money to take some students to visit Harvard. Now Lopez and Chastanet, with Stanton's help, has raised almost 1.2 million dollars and been to The White House to meet the President.

New York City can legally use social media for investigative purposes. Despite a grand jury this past week refusing to indict an NYC teenager on terrorist charges for threatening police via violent emojis in Facebook statuses, the NYPD has successfully implemented a policy that allows police officers to create false social media identities to catch real and potential criminals. The five page policy, released recently in reaction to a freedom of information request, requires NYPD officers hoping to establish false identities online to pass two levels of supervisory scrutiny. The official policy aims “to instil the proper balance between the investigative potential of social network sites and privacy expectations."

Politicians in the USA continue to struggle when it comes to acceptable social media practices. An Ohio lawmaker generated backlash this past week when she used her political Twitter account to tout her local real estate business. The House of Representatives passed the Social Media Working Group Act (H.R. 623) to establish a working group to advise the Homeland Security Department on strategies for delivering information about natural disasters and other emergencies using social media technologies.

Canada and the USA are using social networks to map gang relations and drug violence throughout North and South America. "It turns out that the gangs, being young men, are very active on social media," says Dr. Robert Muggah, who runs the social media research at the SecDev Foundation in Canada and the Igarapé Institute in Rio de Janiero. "They use it to tag (mark territory), they use it to coerce, they use it to recruit, they use it to move product, they use it to communicate directives." Even when not present on social media, the gangs often monitor social media; in Mexico, gangs have effectively imposed social media blackouts in certain areas where gang members don't want citizens sharing information.

In Canada, police charged three men last week with terror-related offences based on witness statements and social media. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested and charged 25-year-old Awso Peshdary of Ottawa with offering financial support to potential terrorists hoping to travel abroad. Khadar Khalib, 23, and John Maguire, 24, were charged in absentia as both men have already left Canada to join ISIS in the Middle East.

Canadian legislators are considering Bill C-51, which would make it an offence to advocate or promote “the commission of terrorism offences," including over the Internet and social media. A de-radicalisation counsellor based in Toronto is skeptical of the Bill's potential impact even if passed. “By the time they actually go through this legislation, even if it takes a few days, it’s still not fast enough to keep up with the propaganda that’s being put out there,” he noted. The counsellor and others note that bills making radicalisation illegal and anti-radicalisation propaganda put out by governments like France's anti-jihadist website and the U.S. State Department’s “Think Again, Turn Away” campaign is probably far less effective than anti-ISIS statements made by reputable Muslim clergy and respected Islamic community members.

British Columbia's leader is under fire for spending $352,644.39 on social media advertising during the teacher's strike. The total social media communication budget included $74,445.77 on sponsored Facebook posts, $58,210.32 on promoted tweets on Twitter and $6,250 on Google ads, plus $167,553 on a “niche digital mobile display.” Most of the ads sent users to the BCParentInfo.ca website where they could find out more about the government's position on the strike and learn about how to pick up a voucher. In defence of the spending, BC Premier Christy Clark explained, “There were thousands and thousands of families that were affected by that (the teachers dispute) and it was really important that the people of British Columbia knew where we were at and where we wanted to go. I have always believed that when government shares more information rather than less citizens are better off.”

Togo is out to improve and re-launch its e-government services. To support this, the country is hosting top national talent for an intense e-service training. The best of those trained will continue their training overseas. Training will probably include social media customer service.

The UK Home Office has published its official government guidelines for hacking.

Privacy regulators in Hamburg, Germany are looking into Facebook data privacy regulations to see if these follow German law. This follows Berlin and Bremen data protection commissioners initiating proceedings against the transfer of German data under the Safe Harbour Agreement. 

About 5,000 Greeks gathered in Syntagma Square in response to a social media call for support for the anti-austerity government. The protest followed Wednesday's decision by the European Central Bank to no longer allow Greek banks to use government debt as collateral for loans.

Dunja Mijatovic, media freedom representative for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), worried last week that legislation under consideration by the Serbian Republic in Bosnia Herzegovina will hinder free expression.  The legislation would extend the definition of a public space to include social media and the Internet. "Under the proposed amendments, anyone who posts symbols, images, texts or music videos on social media that are deemed to disturb public order can be fined up to 300 Bosnian marka ($175). Those deemed to offend or threaten other people face fines of up to 800 marka or a 30-day prison term."

Turkey has indicted Dutch freelance journalist Fréderike Geerdink (@fgeerdink) for “making propaganda” for the Kurdish Workers' Party via, among other things, her social media account. Geerdink lives and works as an independent journalist in the Kurdish area in Southeast Turkey. The Association of European Journalists condemned the indictment in a statement released Thursday.

The Israeli election campaign is heating up. The Koolanu political party posted a video poking fun at the Yesh Atid party's Chairman Yair Lapid for being obsessed with social media.

As of March 1st, China wants all users, past and present, to register (or re-register) for social media accounts using their real names. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) released a 10-clause regulation on Feb. 4 detailing plans to combat “illegal or bad information" online and to stop users from impersonating well-known public figures and institutions online or using disturbing or controversial images or screen names in their social networking.

A survey of Chinese social network users indicates that people are sharing less online and are more concerned about their privacy. After interviewing 53,000 people in in-person interviews and conducting online polls of 13,000 people, the survey suggests that Chinese are less enthusiastic about the positive impact of social media on their personal lives and in society than in prior surveys.

That said, the Chinese government is using social media, including social networks that are blocked inside China such as YouTube, Google Plus, Twitter, and Facebook, to publicise this year's Lunar New Year's variety show. On February 19th, the show will be broadcast internationally and in several languages.

One foreign social network is not banned in China; LinkedIn revealed Thursday that it has doubled its Chinese user base from four million to eight million. In China, LinkedIn is known as Lingying.

Indian authorities clarified to the Indian Supreme Court that comments on social media should not be seen as an offence under Section 66 A of the IT Act. The Act permitted arrests for "annoying, inconvenient and dangerous messages" on social media, something that Indians felt local authorities abused to silence Indians' freedom of expression online. This will hopefully no longer be the case.

Meanwhile, Indian authorities continue to lead workshops encouraging government officials to use social media to communicate with citizens. The Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley in a workshop entitled "Streamlining Government Communication" urged the use of social media to distribute “credible, factual, relevant and reader-friendly information” rather than propaganda. In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party (SP) is using social networks to publicise its positive performance to constituents, hoping to offset what it views as negative publicity. 

In Singapore a judge ruled gay rights blogger Alex Au in contempt for questioning how the Singapore judiciary treats gay sexual activity (considered a crime in Singapore.) Singapore plans to launch a new agency targeting cybercrime.

An Indonesian activist has launched the social media campaign #GueBerani (I am brave) to encourage Indonesian men to get tested for AIDs. Government-funded health organisations note that social media is a great way to reach out the LGBT community in Indonesia.

In Queensland in Australia, a university professor has been tracking the local elections in social media. He found that popularity on social media accurately predicted the election results. 

 Finally, the Australian Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste has returned home after 400 days in an Egyptian jail and a social media campaign advocating his release. Greste and two colleagues were imprisoned for reporting news that was "damaging to national security."  His colleagues remain in jail. 

Still want more? Read 5 countries to follow on social media. 

For more, follow @Linda_Margaret on Twitter.