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Sat, May 18 2013
Talking Pictures
My week on twitter 13 May to 19 May 2013. Some pics from me, some pics retweeted by me and some pics sent to me.
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Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’
Sorry, @mirandadevine: @catharinelumby reflects on Twitter ethics
In Catharine Lumby on May 11, 2013 at 12:39 PM
May 11, 2013
A couple of nights ago I rang the News Limited columnist Miranda Devine. I had gone to some lengths to obtain her mobile number. I needed to apologise to her in person for retweeting a tweet by Mike Carlton that I did not read carefully enough before flipping it on to the Twittersphere.
Carlton’s original tweet read: “@mirandadevine is ‘embedded’ with the Police Riot Squad, as she puts it. What, all of them at once? Must be exhausting”. What caught my eye at first glance was the notion that the Australian police had adopted the practice, familiar from the invasion of Iraq, of ‘embedding’ journalists. I retweeted it and less than a minute later, I read my retweet and realised that Carlton’s original tweet included a very offensive sexual subtext that I missed when I first read it. I immediately retracted my retweet and apologised on Twitter.
Like many people who inhabit the Twittersphere, I was working on my laptop while scrolling the Twitter feed on my phone when I sent the retweet. I wasn’t prepared to excuse my retweet as mere carelessness because I knew that there was a real person at the other end of the tweet and my retweet.
Miranda and I are at very different ends of the political spectrum and she has been less than kind about my views in some of her columns – as she is entitled to be. I don’t know her well but when we have bumped into each other socially I’ve been impressed by her warmth and her openness to dialogue. When I rang her she was gracious enough to accept my apology. Others on the right, however, saw my retraction as ‘bizarre’ and implied that I was intentionally maligning Miranda because I thought it was OK to cast a slur on someone with different opinions. So I copped my own abuse that same day and it behoved me to take it on the chin.
It’s a small story that contains the seeds of a much larger story about the world of potential pain which unfolds every day on social media. Miranda Devine and I are from the same generation. When I started in journalism at the Sydney Morning Herald, in 1987, Remington typewriters were still lying around the newsroom among the computers. At one point in my endless apprenticeship to what was still called a trade, I was assigned to the Letters page. My major task, apart from deciphering the spidery handwriting of Retired High School Principals from East Lindfield, was to call the writers chosen for publication and verify their identity and get them to agree to me editing their copy down to one paragraph.
It seems a world away now. The public sphere has been democratised in ways we could never have imagined before the digital, online and social media era. The media no longer operates one-to-many. Everyone with access to a computer or a mobile phone can have their say – even if they are sitting in a café sending 5,000 angry tweets frustrated that only have five followers. As someone who passionately believes in dialogue – and most importantly civilised dialogue – I love the fact that the public podium has been opened up to everyone. What I don’t like is the level of vitriol and abuse that so often characterises debate.
I suspect many people feel the same way. Neither the Left or the Right have a monopoly on ethical engagement. As a left-leaning feminist commentator, I have had far more abuse and defamatory comments angled at me from people who are supposedly on my ‘side’ of politics. My problem, perhaps, is that I refuse to take sides. I genuinely care about having a conversation. Read the rest of this entry »
The Desperation of a Liberal MP? The Russian spambots.
In Astroturfing, Tony The Geek on January 21, 2013 at 10:50 AMBy The Geek
21 January 2013
Source: Storify
This story was published on Saturday on Storify and retweeted via Twitter on Sunday and Monday and now has over 3,300 views.
[View the full story “The Desperation of a Liberal MP? The Russian spambots.” on Storify]
Greg Hunt has resorted or is at least is supported by an army of spambots who retweet his tweets. Could it be that he cannot find real people on twitter that like what he says? Who knows. We know the Libs or supporters do run other Spam Bots like LaborDirt. Here is a breakdown of just 1 LNP tweet.
Another 60 jobs to go in Adelaide from Penrice Soda. Carbon Tax named as part of the reason. A real blow #auspol
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Greg Hunt (@GregHuntMP) January 18, 2013Update 1: Since publishing this story earlier, I have put together a growing list of LNP Bots here: https://twitter.com/geeksrulz/greg-hunt-bots/members
Also at last count 19 January 2013, there were about 40 genuine retweets out of 175 in total for this tweet. The Bots are tweeting via an app or platform called “The People’s Voice”. Has anyone heard of this? Contact me @geeksrulz on Twitter.
Update 2: I tweeted a link last night to my storify feature is.gd/3r9Xj1 to @GregHuntMP for comment. No response so far. Read the rest of this entry »
