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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