In this case, the proposed Saturday January 28th blackout of Twitter misses the mark entirely. While many would enjoy a day away from formatting 140 characters, the hype around Twitter’s ‘Country Blocking’ policy, leading to a call for users to abandon the service for a day, is misguided. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and news organizations have all attempted to deal with the issue of censorship in certain countries – China being a long term target, although Belarus, Thailand, Iran, Gulf States come to mind recently – yet none of those companies have tried a nuanced approach which weighs heavily in favour of users, yet respecting laws.

and as per the blog photo – it does not matter what blocks communication. Cats are very effective.

Twitter Policy (Full post)

As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.

Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.

This post by Zeynep Tufekci is one of the better analyses: Technosociology

In my opinion, with this policy, Twitter is fighting to protect free speech on Twitter as best it possibly can. (It also fits with its business model so I am not going to argue they are uniquely angelic, but Twitter does have a good track record. Twitter was the only company which first fought the US government to protect user information in the Wikileaks cas,e and then informed the users when it lost the fight. In fact, Twitter’s transparency is the only reason we even know of this; other companies, it appears, silently caved and complied.)

Twitter’s latest policy is purposefully designed to allow Twitter to exist as a platform as broadly as possible while making it as hard as possible for governments to censor content, either tweet by tweet or more, all the while giving free-speech advocates a lot of tools to fight censorship.

Hard to argue – in fact this is a case where a social media company realizes the best way forward for all, is to allow the service to work in restrictive environments. Will tweets be blacked out? Sure. Will some governments block the service? Yes – but Twitter, unlike Google, which adopted an all or nothing approach in 2010, or Yahoo – which complied completely, have largely failed to gain ground either to advance an open internet in restrictive environments, freedom of speech, or even their own business, while the demand from activists living within suppressive regimes for a worldwide voice is ever increasing.

History  is telling. The Google, Yahoo, Facebook debacles trying to gain a foothold in the world’s largest and fastest growing online community resulted in not only those companies losing potential user revenue, but fostered a growing copycat model (Huffington Post – China’s Social Media). Twitter’s policy might not be what free speech advocates view as ideal, but at least it provides a bridge across the digital divide.

Instead of a Twitter user blackout, how about ‘adopting’ an activist? If you are reading this post you are likely active on social media, have an online network, and (I hope) are a critical thinker. Choose a person or an organization that that you feel deserves attention – one suppressed by internal or external forces beyond their control. They could be 1000 miles away, or in your neighbourhood.

Social media is fun, yes. Fantastic platforms to connect, share: reinforce and make new friends. Those same platforms speak truth to power.

Video – Clay Shirkey

On Saturday January 28th, don’t blackout Twitter. Promote a cause.

Your comments, suggestions and questions are welcome

Piracy of copyright material is an issue, not one to ignore as it costs content producers: musicians, movie makers, photographers to name a few – billions of lost revenue each year. What is at issue is how any government can and should legislate against website owners (bloggers), internet service providers, file sharing services, and search engines no matter where they reside.

The key parts to each act specifically authorized US law enforcement to block non-US websites and online services if they were accused of hosting pirated material. Placing the onus onto bloggers, social media platforms and search engines to ‘police’ all their links, resulted in one of the largest online backlashes ever seen:

From O’Reilly Radar

Consider the following statistics:

162 million Wikipedia page views, with some 8 million visitors using an online form to look up the address of their Congressional representatives.
7 million signatures on Google’s petition.
200,000+ signatures on the Progressive Change Campaign Committee petition.
30,000+ Craigslist users called Congress through the PCCC’s website.
250,000+ people took action through the EFF’s resources.
2.4 million+ SOPA-related tweets were sent between 12 a.m. and 4 p.m. on January 18.
140,000 phone calls made through Tumblr’s platform.
Nearly 1,000 protesters outside New York’s U.S. Senators’ office in New York City.
The key metric to consider for impact of this action, however, was not measured in digital terms but by civic outcomes: 40 new opponents in Congress.

As we spoke on air, news was coming in that both bills have been postponed, but the debate will continue as the entertainment and content industry seeks more protection. One solution is simply market forces, as Michael Geist eloquently points out in his Huffington Post article.

Podcast: SOPA, PIPA

There are WordPress plugins like Embedly, Twitter search windows, Facebook feeds etc. that somewhat clunkily will take a search term from a single feed and embed the latest comments on any given topic, but not a simple system that allowed a blogger or journalist to gather together posts from multiple social media platforms. Of course, Storify has been around since – well, April 2011 – which has a boon for news junkies, pollsters, politicos, presenters – and used by some news organizations in an experimental fashion. The potential has been proven with PBS NewsHour, The Vancouver Sun, Al Jazeera using the system to collate social media responses to a news item, curating and essentially preserving a digital history.

As a public platform, Storify is not only for experts or large organizations. In fact is a fairly simple, understandable, drag and drop interface which can be used by anyone as a stand alone ‘story’, curating responses from Twitter, Facebook and Youtube from a local event to ultra-national such as the Occupy movement and demonstrations in the Middle East.

Now that Storify has a plugin for WordPress, the possibilities to create blog posts out of social media posts is realized, and maybe more importantly for bloggers (like myself) who like to add some opinion, to include a Storify embed, directly from the dashboard, adds a wonderful dimension to articles.

Note: as the news came out of the WP Storify plugin I added it to this website, which is normally accessed on Mac Lion OS 10.6.8 with Firefox 4.0.1 and it failed. The first time I’ve seen any WP plugin report a browser issue. The good part of this story was @Storify directly responded: and in fact updated the plugin the next day, although Firefox for older OS versions on Mac are still problematic.

_________________________________

How Storify Works in WordPress

After downloading, installing and activating the Storify WP plugin to your self-hosted WordPress system, a new dashboard tab will appear in the left side menu. Clicking on that tab will open the story window, where you can easily login to Storify using Twitter or Facebook (or a unique user name and password) accessing a similar search/drag and drop pane as in Storify itself. Simply search for a topic and grab the tweets, Facebook messages, Youtube videos and Flickr photos that are relevant to your social media curation.

Once you hit publish in the Storify plugin, a new blog post will appear with the link embeded, where you can add other content as in a regular post. (It will also be directly published on Storify as well) – alternatively you can create within Storify or WordPress, and embed, as per below:

Expect to see far more blogs and news orgs using WordPress combined with Storify to create stand alone articles; to supplement and enhance stories.

As always, comments and questions are welcome, and please do share examples!

Social Media has been a natural progression and interest, more so as clients depend on advanced knowledge and skills. While research is a major part of what any Public Relations and marketing professional should be doing, it is often a dreary job simply looking at numbers that relate to a single brand, company or organizational effort. That work, and especially looking at the bigger picture, has a brighter side with conversations and connections in the political, public relations and media world: individuals with similar concerns and thoughts. So, thank you to the many who have opened my mind, shared thoughts and opinions, and allowed me the opportunity to voice my opinions (however wrong they might be) in the media and classroom – Professors: Janni Aragon (@janniaragon) and Raul Pacheco Vega (@raulpacheco) – Media: Theresa Lalonde, CBC (@TheresaLalonde), and Adam Stirling at CFAX1070 Victoria (@Adam_Stirling) where we have taken a shared interest, and online conversation, on the radical changes in media to the radio.

Social Media in 2012

The full half-hour podacst of the CFAX interview is available below. We began the interview by noting the number of social media users, a staggering jump in 2011 on Facebook and Twitter, and how that combined with the numbers of people with internet access and mobile devices has reached a critical mass. Underlying every major news event – in fact, the creation of the news that dominated 2011 (Arab Spring and Occupy) – was the use of social and citizen generated media.

So what will 2012 bring? Will social media platforms continue to see a rise in users? How will our own consumption and sharing of news change media organizations? Will governments change interactions with citizens?

Audio – Interview with Adam Stirling on CFAX 1070 AM, Victoria BC

2011 was a year of quakes, shakes, upheavals – highbrow and lowbrow news that zinged around the world as fast as people could press ‘re-tweet’. Luminaries were lost: Memories of Christopher Hitchens and Vaclav Havel faded in the haze of despair with the news, just under the year end wire, that Katy Perry and Russell Brand are no longer Hollywood’s golden couple.

With the past 12 months seemingly rife with daily misadventures, what will 2012 bring?

1: SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act): The US Congress really hates pirates. After a mass public movement kills any hope of passing legislation against domestic online piracy, lawmakers simply change the name of the Bill to ‘Somalia Offshore Piracy Action’. AK-47 toting ship thieves can now be legally hanged for copyright infringement.

2: Cats will again dominate video: Despite 35 hours of compelling, informative and culturally significant video uploaded to YouTube every minute, 8 of the top ten online videos of 2012 will be about cats. Snoring cats, felines chasing radio controlled cars operated by stoned teenagers, cats rescuing firefighters stuck in trees, cats smoking bongs and chasing teenagers with radio controlled cars, cats shitting in toilets and flushing…you get the point. The only two non-cat related top ten videos are of Katy Perry without her wedding ring, and twenty minutes of Rick Perry playing pocket pool behind his lectern during the final GOP Leadership debate. (He wins, the debate)

3: GST/HST a matter of dialect: After soundly denouncing the British Columbia Harmonized Sales Tax in a 2011 referendum, citizens believe a return to GST/PST is simply a matter of time. Not so – scrambling to re-instate the tax, new BC Finance Minister Dean Fortin realizes former premier, and anti-HST campaigner Bill Vander Zalm, was in essence, the solution. In the Dutch language, ‘G’s are pronounced as an ‘H’; by publishing all finance and tax policy in Dutch the two taxes will be linguistically combined!

4: City of Victoria: Long serving city councillor Pam Madoff announces in July she will resign to realize a life-long dream of becoming a heritage building. Facing huge infrastructure costs for a new recreation centre and fire hall, along with operational financial shortfalls, council declares a by-election and referendum for November. As a cost saving measure, Victoria voters are asked to approve a single, combined building – fire station, library, pool, nuclear power station and sewage treatment plant, or accept a 4000% property tax increase. Residents reject both and move en mass to Saanich, where Mayor Frank Leonard declares a state of emergency (on Twitter) and asks for immediate assistance from the UNHCR (also, via Twitter). When asked why he didn’t phone for assistance, the Saanich Mayor replied ‘are you kidding? Prime Minister’s office phone support is a 2 hour wait. On Twitter it’s immediate’

5: Personal Art: Hipsters declare QR code tattoos ‘so passé‘. The 2012 trend for skin ink are # tags – #Momma, #I’mWithStupid, and the ever popular #♥. Twitter wins the # trademark and immediately sues 15 million for copyright violation and lifetime royalties; admitting ‘this is really the only way we can make money‘.

6: EU: Realizing that centuries of diplomacy and two ruinous world wars failed to gain domination, Germany says “schraube dieser“, takes advantage of the financial crisis, and simply buys Europe. Nothing really changes except state dinners, where the menus are heavy on schnitzel and Riesling wine; and Paris is renamed Merkelville.

7: RIM: Canada nationalizes Research in Motion with Prime Minister Harper justifying the move as ‘the only way I can have private conversations with Peter Mackay when he is in a helicopter‘. Rioters worldwide rejoice.

8: BC Ferries: 30 major dock crashes, 2 sinkings and the Queen of Coquitlam arriving in Honolulu instead of Swartz Bay (to the delight of passengers) – new BC Ferry Chairman Gregor Robertson admits hiring Thai tuk-tuk drivers to replace experienced captains as a cost saving measure, saying ‘hey, if they can navigate Bangkok floods, surely Active Pass ain’t a problem. Enjoy our new yoghurt bar!‘. To increase revenue, passengers and vehicles are charged per kilo – reducing American tourism to Vancouver Island to zilch, not only for the weight factor, but US version Blackberry conversion App is faulty (Imperial gallons to fat ratio qualified in terms of US debt level and Canadian $, combined with GIS sends most travellers to Victoria. Virginia).

9: Social Media/News: Journalists worldwide collectively raise hands and surrender to citizen media, admitting ‘for each credible, authoritative and balanced report we generate there are 5 million anecdotal, biased blogs/videos/Facebook updates and Tweets: we can’t compete‘. Every major news organization simply becomes a Twitter timeline. (and is subsequently sued by Twitter for copyright infringement)

10: Fiction/Books: After lengthy meetings with her bank manager (the EU emergency bailout fund), author J.K. Rowling realizes she cannot justify buying Belgium without publishing another book. Taking a cue from Star Wars, she goes back in time and announces: ‘Harry Potter: The Magic Diaper Diaries‘ (4 part series). To appease anti-witch, religious zealots: in chapter two, Harry is simultaneously circumcised, baptised, entered into the order of Masons, and adopted by the Taliban. Chapter three, with Harry and Hermione, as toddlers playing ‘doctor’ to heal his abused ‘wand’, becomes the 2012 online meme. Pre-sales rocket, with 30 year olds lining up in front of theaters two years in advance of the movie release.

11: US Politics: Tea Party collectively surrender when Michele Bachmann is revealed to be both a male cross dresser, and gay. While they commiserate over coffee, Mitt Romney renounces Mormonism, joins the Rastifarians, and proposes the immediate legalization of marijuana, taxation of said product to solve the US debt crisis, and re-tasking of the Keystone pipeline to pump hash oil from British Columbia directly to Washington DC ‘where it is needed most‘. In a counter move, Obama joins the Mormons in order to ‘regain the center of US politics‘.

12: The Mayans are right…

Wishing all readers a Happy 2012!!

Without going into the actual merits of the US legal case, points immediately became clear in both the judgment, and following commentary:

The US District court judge held for the plaintiff, Obsidian Finance Group, against Crystal Cox in part by defining a journalist as:

affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.

The Oregon ruling against Crystal Cox seems to limit legal protection within the US only to media content producers within traditional networks, and who can produce a contract of employment. Yet there are plenty of examples of networks and syndicates which would seemingly deserve the same protection, and individual news sources, who through their own efforts, have similar broadcast influence. The court’s definition, on it’s own merits, seems extremely 20th century. The proliferation of online media channels, where anyone can create a ‘news’ network – YouTube Channels, WordPress.com, Blogger and more – as free platforms, begs the definition, as the each could be included in the ruling. In fact, they might in any followup appeals.

What was interesting was the almost immediate followup in The Seattle Weekly, with an opinion, that had the case been judged in Washington State, rather than Oregon, the outcome would have been the opposite – although both states, among 40 others, have agreed to a ‘shield law‘.

Washington State defines news media as: [from Washington State Legislature]

Any newspaper, magazine or other periodical, book publisher, news agency, wire service, radio or television station or network, cable or satellite station or network, or audio or audiovisual production company, or any entity that is in the regular business of news gathering and disseminating news or information to the public by any means, including, but not limited to, print, broadcast, photographic, mechanical, internet, or electronic distribution;

and even that definition is limiting as, while it goes further than Oregon to somewhat protect solely online articles, the inclusion of ‘regular’ implies that a one off article, or someone who posts on their blog (or through another network) irregularly, is somehow not deserving the same protection. Frankly, the time frame, or platform, should not matter. It is the content that counts.

Many opinions on this particular topic, weighing in on the US centric implications:

David Carr, New York Times – “When Truth Survives Free Speech“  [Twitter @carr2n]

In the pre-Web days, someone like Ms. Cox might have been one more obsessive in the lobby of a newspaper, waiting to show a reporter a stack of documents that proved the biggest story never told. The Web has allowed Ms. Cox to cut out the middleman; various blogs give voice to her every theory, and search algorithms give her work prominence.

and check the continually updated opinion articles through Google on this particular case…

The problem with the Cox case is not only a poor example for case law of a citizen seeking truth to power, but one who herself looks to define the online platforms as her playgrounds:

“I have a gift for getting on top of search engines and I want to give voice to victims of the corrupt judicial system,” she said in an interview by phone. “The system wants to shut me up and they have been trying to for years.”

“I’m glad I lost the case, because it gives attention to what I have been doing,” she added, saying she doesn’t have money to hire an attorney — she represented herself in the defamation case — let alone $2.5 million to pay in damages. She plans to appeal.

As one who tries to empower people, journalists or not, to be brave – to research, write, and publish thoughtfully using online tools, that rich available online democracy, I would agree citizen journalists should adhere to a code of best practices. In many examples where blogs and social media have combined to create a meme for or against an authority, there is a moderation factor in numbers: not so in this case. Crystal Cox might be correct, might not, but her example should not be the legal precedent to judge all others.

Of course, the Cox case is US law, and will likely be appealed. Canada does not have a ‘shield law’ per se, nor do most countries. In fact journalists, especially citizen bloggers, have been targeted in 2010/2011 around the world. [Reporters without Borders] In Canada, courts do not differentiate between a journalist and citizen in terms of access to information, or offer particular protection under law. Each are equally liable especially in terms of defamation and libel.

In the US, the 1964 case of New York Times vs Sullivan defined defamation laws:

The Court held that the First Amendment protects the publication of all statements, even false ones, about the conduct of public officials except when statements are made with actual malice (with knowledge that they are false or in reckless disregard of their truth or falsity). Under this new standard, Sullivan’s case collapsed.

Protecting sources is another matter entirely. Journalists employed by legacy media usually work under an editor, and within guidelines and standards. Before publishing using anonymous sources there is often a conversation with an editor to receive final approval – is the source trust worthy, is anonymity a requirement? Citizen Journalists often do not have the luxury – or some would say the limitations – of an editor, yet individually published blogs have broken news, especially on celebrities and technology using insider and anonymous sources. The lead up to any gadget launch creates a wealth of speculation, and sometimes lawsuits – see Wired, Think Belligerent

Much like the Oregon ruling, the disparity in applying the US Shield Law to cases applies in Canada. On one hand the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled in favour of hyperlinking vs potential defamation – yet in two other judgements ruled in the first that sources were not protected [National Post, et al. v. Her Majesty the Queen], and in the second, that protecting sources was the rule: [Daniel LeBlanc case]

Where does this leave citizen journalists? Not much difference than a year, two years ago or since the beginning of the internet. Legality always takes time to catch up with technology, and legacy media the same time frame to meet, and attempt to match, those who feel mainstream media are not reporting the news that matters. Read Kayt Davies article on Activist Media

If the only journalists are the ones employed by networks, mastheads and agencies, this makes it fairly easy for tyrants and wrongdoers to hide their activities from the eyes of the world. Only the latter are likely to come poking around uninvited and throwing up a simple media ban can keep them out, as even they are not well enough resourced to put up a fight, and without access they struggle to assert that there is something wrong going on that they should be allowed to report on.

The flies in the ointment of this sinister scenario are the philanthropic social media activists who are all about going into trouble spots to teach ordinary people the difference between journalism, blogging and propaganda; and sharing how to do journalism basics (such as WWWWWH and inverted pyramid writing style please, watch your tenses, and a fact isn’t a fact until you have it confirmed by three sources). Some, such as WestPapuaMedia.info, also teach how to use phones and cameras to maximum effect, and how to minimise chances of being arrested, killed and/or having footage confiscated. Other examples are NarcoNews and BurmaVJ.

Corporate media, and publicly funded publications cannot, will not fill the entire demand for information. For both it might not be in their interest or mandate; time and publication space constraints limit output. Especially at the hyper-local level and niche interest, citizen media amply fills that role. Recognizing that, there is far more collaboration now between established media, paid journalists and citizen reporters – with that, there is also a teaching moment.

Comments: This post was written over a few days, talking to a number of journalists, bloggers, and commentators. The following are a few of the comments received:

From Tom Hawthorn (Twitter: @TomHawthorn): who I have to thank as being very proactive and helpful with links, and thoughts.

(From Twitter) I’d like 1st Amendment type wording, plus a Sullivan v. NYT type libel ruling, plus better FOIA, plus shield law for all citizens.

Not my area of expertise, but whistleblower/shield law might be beneficial for Cdn society.

Via Sean Eckford on Facebook

And a point worth making Mat, is that citizens, or bloggers, are not subject to the same rules on defamation or libel as journalists… but that journalists are subject to the sames LAWS on defamation and libel as every Canadian citizen. Period. On this one the phrasing does matter!

and: As for privilege etc… to me a key distinction is who do you answer to? I’ll agree any blogger or citizen journalist an be considered as a member of the profession if they are bound by a recognizable and enforceable code of conduct – such as the CBC’s standards and practices or those in the broadcast industry etc. After all, to use an extreme example, I can’t set up as “citizen doctor” just because I have the ability to attract patients and even cure one or two. If you’re a blogger and you’ve got a page on your blog that outlines the code of conduct you work under, with consequences and a way for the reader to tigger those consequences – welcome!

With thanks to Tom Hawthorn, Sean Eckford, Emmett Macfarlane, Ross Crockford, Kate Gardiner, Gillian Shaw

as always, comments are welcome…

While spam accounts, bots and hacks are relatively easy to deal with: block users, bots and change your password if hacked (also, ensure you trust applictions that share your Twitter account details), established profiles that emulate who you are on Twitter are more difficult to solve, and can be far more insidious and potentially reputation damaging.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

This has recently been a cause for concern locally in Victoria BC, where a number of local Twitter users have reported impersonations, often multiples copying a single profile – and the ‘attacks’ are spreading. Unlike reporting a spammer, or automated spam bot, accounts which impersonate someone else require the direct investigation and intervention by Twitter itself.

There have been a number of recent cases where both Twitter and courts have come to different conclusions if, for instance, an account which purports to be someone, usually with a high public profile, can be considered art or satire. See the Seattle Pi “Racism and Twitter impersonation prompt lawsuit for Kirkland teen”

PMO Harper

This is especially true with political Twitter accounts, where the proliferation of satirical accounts is evident. The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, has his own verified Twitter profile, but contends with a number of emulators, usually satirical rather than supportive.

Of course, with high profile public figures it might be expected in the contemporary media environment to tolerate such ‘invasions’, less so with more subtle impersonations of Twitter users with only a few hundred or thousand followers. As the right image illustrates, @pmoharper makes it clear in the profile the Twitter account is a parody, and in fact protected under Canadian Law, unless only posts are out rightly libelous.

Twitter does offer verified accounts, however their former public application process has been suspended, requiring either an advertising account, or API partner application before consideration.

How do I get my account verified?

This program is currently closed to the public. This means we are not able to accept public requests for verification.

Why is the Beta verification program currently closed?

Twitter’s public beta version of account verification is no longer available. After a long period of manual testing, we’ve closed public applications. We have removed our public-facing verification request form. In the meantime, we’re still verifying some trusted sources, such as our advertisers and partners. If you’re one of our partners or advertisers, please follow up with your account manager for details.

@writingvictoria – real account

As actual verification is currently unavailable for the vast majority of Twitter users, dealing with impersonations is problematic. The type of accounts that are plaguing some users are more subtle – using completely different user names, or slight variations, but often employing the same profile picture and text.

This does not appear to be possible with automation, in other words, someone is actually creating new Twitter accounts using the information from established profiles. The impersonations also seem to be random, copying some accounts with very few followers and posts, other with far higher numbers, and it is growing. At the time of publishing this, over 30 local Victoria BC Twitter users have reported impersonations.

Showing in the images are the ‘real’ @WritingVictoria, (Left Image) and the impersonation account (Right Image below). As with most seen, the accounts are very new, mostly use the real profile picture, and the profile text with a word or two slightly modified. Each impersonation also (so far) seems to only post two ‘tweets’, usually a repeat of an actual

@writingvictoria impersonation account

message from the ‘real’ account, sometimes with a nonsense post.

The point of these types of emulation accounts is currently unclear. Locally there is a great deal of awareness, with the Victoria BC network actively assisting each other to identify when someone has been impersonated, as we often do with Direct Message spam. While they appear to be harmless, an irritant and mainly a matter for speculation (who is doing them, what is the purpose…), the fact a person or group is spending the time to create these is worrisome.

They could be used to send spam advertising, phishing links – repeat messages from the real account with a link modified to a ‘bot’ website, as an example. The other possibility is to game SEO, or search engine optimization. Many savvy and technically adept social media and web marketers understand the growing relationship between Search and Social Media. Google especially has integrated real time search, including live blog, Twitter and Google Plus updates. An impersonation account could possibly interfere, reduce ranking, or become a top hit, impacting online reputation.

How to Report an Impersonation Account.

Twitter does have an online form to report impersonation accounts. Read the policy:

What is impersonation?
Impersonation is pretending to be another person or entity in order to deceive. Impersonation is a violation of the Twitter Rules and may result in permanent account suspension.

Twitter users are allowed to create parody, commentary, or fan accounts. Please refer to Twitter’s Parody Policy for more information about these accounts. Accounts with the clear intent to confuse or mislead may be permanently suspended.

If you see someone obviously impersonating your profile with the potential to harm, this is what you will need to record, and then report to Twitter itself.

Who can report impersonation?
Twitter processes impersonation reports from the user being impersonated or someone legally authorized to act on behalf of the user/entity.

What information do I need to include when reporting impersonation?
In order to investigate impersonation, we need the following information:

Username of the person impersonating you (or the URL of their profile page):
Your First and Last Name:
Your Twitter username (if you have one):
Address:
Phone:
Brief description of the impersonating content:
If you are not the person involved in the impersonation, but are legally authorized to act their behalf, please include the information above in addition this information:

Your Name:
Phone:
Fax:
Company Website:
Company domain email address:
Your title and legal relationship to the person/entity involved:

You can then file a Ticket Request using this form on the Twitter website.

If your account has been impersonated, or you know someone who has experienced this issue, let me know how Twitter dealt with the request for action.

As always, you thoughts, ideas and comments are appreciated

Wordpress

While the WordPress core has recently incorporated a number of features such as Featured Images, Galleries, Excerpts – and continues to add more with each upgrade – there are over 17 000 free available plugins which provide extra functions behind the scenes, and for presentation. Plugins can be searched for, and installed, directly from the Administration Dashboard of WordPress (under Plugins/Add New) or through the WordPress.Org Extend Section.

A few tips. Not all plugins are created equally! Look for the following when trying to find the best for your requirements. All WP verified plugins have essential information on the profile pages..

• Compatibility: make sure the plugin works on the latest version of WordPress.
• Check when the latest upgrade was completed. If the plugin has not been updated for months or years it might mean the developer is no longer providing support
• Downloads: the more people using a plugin, the more likely it works well
• Ratings: if the rating is high, and plenty of people have added a +, that usually means the plugin ranks better than others which might offer similar functions.
• Author: Plugins created by tech or design companies often have better functionality, fewer bugs, more frequent upgrades, and better support. They are often offered for free to showcase the abilities of the company.

The following are WordPress plugins we almost always install for client websites:

Search Engine submissions and Analytics

Google XML Sitemaps: Being found and correctly indexed in search engines, especially Google, is vital for most websites. Sitemaps provide SEs with a route map to your entire website, and this plugin automatically re-formats the XML directory file when you publish blog posts and update pages.

Google Analyticator: Set up a Google Analytics Account, enter your domain information, and get the UA code (a Google tracking code) – enter the UA into this plugin, and all your pages and posts will be tracked, without have to add the individual tracking code within the WP template. There are also Dashboard visuals to display the past 30 days, including top pages, and a widget to show viewers number of widgets.

another analytics display, and one which shows page views within the ‘All Posts’ section, along with the Dashboard is Google Analytics Dashboard

SEO Ultimate: SEO Ultimate is a complete all-in-one SEO plugin. Control of your on-page SEO with user-friendly settings and tools for optimizing your titles, meta data, robots tags, canonicalization, autolinks, post slugs, and much more. There is extensive documentation for high end SEO, while the Edit Page/Post fields are self-explanatory.

Social Media – Shares and Displays

Social Media WordPress Plugins

Add to Any – Share, Bookmark, Email: Offering the ability for viewers to quickly and easily share your pages and posts to networks is vital in the social media world. This customizable plugin sets a drop drop display within pages, and/or a sidebar to almost every service available – Facebook, Stumbleupon, Email, Google+….

Subscribe 2: This installs a basic email list system, with a subscribe form, for viewers to sign up for email notifications when you publish a new blog post. It can also operate as newsletter program. You can add/edit and delete subscribers (import and export a list) and each subscriber can manage their own subscription to set categories.

Twitter Goodies: While Add to Any has a Tweet out, Google Plus and Facebook function, it is often nice to have set buttons and extra functionality for the top social media networks. This plugin will show your twitter tweets under Sidebar Area (Widget), Post and/or Pages. Tweets will refresh automatically. Also it has a reply option with a mouse over action. A button wil display on pages and posts showing the number of Twitter shares, built in with the function for viewers to click the button to send to their Twitter stream. The widget allows you to display your tweets in the sidebar, and to create ‘in post’ windows with search or user streams.

Facebook Social Plugins: Adds a ‘Like’ button to pages and posts, and display the number of shares, along with thumbnail profiles. You can also create a Facebook ‘Like Box’ for the sidebar displaying your Facebook news feed.

Going Mobile

WPtouch: WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Palm Pre, Samsung touch and BlackBerry Storm/Torch mobile device,

Contact/Spam

Contact Form 7: Highly customizable, but simple to implement. Creating a basic contact/email form, or more complex input/send fields, this is the most robust plugin.

Really Simple Captcha: Works very well as an integrated Captcha system for Contact Form 7.

SI Captcha/Anti-Spam: Adds a Captcha to login, comments and registration forms. Can be configured to allow verified subscribers to post comments bypassing the Captcha.

There are thousands more plugins that offer rich features for photo and video galleries, e-commerce, caching, and so much more. Basically, if any website has required a function, someone has likely developed a WordPress compatible plugin. To remember though, is while plugins provide seamless and automatic extras beyond the basic WordPress code, they can add server load, increasing the download time of your website pages and posts.

The above are some of the plugins we utilize for most of our client WordPress driven websites. Have others you feel are essential? Let me know!

Laura Payton and Kady O'Malley: Twitter

This topic came about from a Twitter conversation between Kady O’Malley (Twitter @Kady) and Laura Payton (Twitter @Laura_Payton) both CBC Parliamentary reporters. Look at many media outlets, their online pages have navigation bars that define topics – National News, World News, Sports, Politics etc. and note the recent addition, Blogs. See The New Yorker, where the Blog link is third in the top navigation bar, The Tyee, more interesting as it is an online only news source, but still wishes to define ‘blogs’ vs ‘articles’. The question is, what defines a ‘blog’ vs what those publications might prefer to call an article? Most publications, be they daily, weekly or monthly have websites, yet they name similar ‘posts’, ie what the New Yorker or Tyee call ‘blogs’ as something else. The Vancouver Sun, a Post Media publication, does have a section blogs.vancouversun.com, which is clearly held under their Opinion section, CBC has no highlighted Blog section on the website main page, although does have the Inside Politics Blog, while the Globe and Mail does have a World View Blog within the main navigation. The list could go on – CNN does not define blogs vs articles, yet clearly has both internal and out-sourced opinion pieces, along with iReporter, BBC has an Editor’s Blog…

Kady O'Malley and Laura Payton: Twitter

More interesting is the debate over blogs vs journalism has moved internally. This is fascinating, and one that everyone who believes objective media is key to, well, shall we say, democracy (?)

Only a few years ago the academic, journalistic and political chatter was about the influence of legacy media outliers, the citizen journalists, taking on the mainstream, gaining an audience and undercutting the established TV, print and radio networks, for a variety of reasons. An ‘us vs them’ out cry. Now that debate has moved into media organizations themselves where the the personal touch to an article that has passed the editorial eye, becomes an added extra to the publication – an author blog, within the same publication. Maybe this is one way for publications, and networks, to keep their producers within the realm, and not go off station. The fact is, savvy journalists who realize the power and prevalence of social media, can create their own brand and trust network. Many Journalists have their own self-published blog websites, twitter feeds, Facebook profiles and if relevant, Flickr and YouTube profiles as well. The trend, however, is for the more personal posts to now be included within network owned mediums.

Journalist vs Blogger

In Canada there is really no legal distinction between a citizen journalist (blogger, tweeter etc.) vs someone employed as a reporter for an established media organization. All are subject to the same libel laws, all have the same right of access to information, and protection of sources – and in fact, with the rise of social media, politicians, companies, brands and organizations are quickly turning away from the ‘mainstream’ to the niche. More bang for the ‘tweet’, if you can go outside of traditional broadcasting. Better if one can use both….for now

Merging of Technology

Legacy media going online: I was there in the early 90′s going into the 21st Century watching and advising companies and media outlets. Always with the caveat: no matter which route you choose, look to the niches, watch the bypassers, because that is your route to an audience. True today. WordPress was the open source, and often derided, platform that hard core bloggers used. Look at it now – it is the platform for NPR, Wired, The Vancouver Sun (Post Media) Opinion section and over 67 million websites under wordpress.com – let alone how many are WP self-hosted. The point being, while media was trashing open source, they are now embracing the code – and if not a direct buy in, seeking to emulate the structure. The problem for legacy media is not the structure or platform, it is the fact they are now catching up. There is a de facto understanding, at least among individual journalists, that the corporate structure is crumbling.

The Blog Structure Wins

The problem with legacy media, be it print, TV, radio or even new online only outlets is that they are deeply reluctant to out link. Not a problem of course for anyone hosting their own blog – and as many journalists do the same on their own personal blogs, those outsourced links provide a back up for deeper, investigative, reporting, and transparency.

The Problem with Blogs

Bloggers are you, me, employed journalists, an idiot, a brand, a charity and all are blurred. On top of that, those longer form citizen journalist blogs could be incredible investigative reportage, or a government/company trying to assuage an audience, or a favourite newspaper. This goes beyond ‘search’ online, as any tech savvy person can now beat out a government or media, company brand with credible SEO (search engine optimization) – and hence the reason Google has added real time Social Media to search queries, along with G+. Bloggers have the same potential, maybe even greater, to reach and influence an audience as any media outlet.

Speaking with Ross Crockford, a writer, journalist, blogger and former editor of Victoria’s Monday Magazine he noted the online media miasma is problematic for legacy publications.

For journalists there is a premise of objectivity, but that is breaking down. Fox News in the US, Sun Media in Canada are examples where a bias for a point of view seems obvious, but many still perceive them as objective. What must terrify publications is the full rich media palette available to bloggers – the ability to link out for documents and sources (authenticity and verification). Journalists are restricted by editorial guidelines, style books, available word space, and the time available to report on any particular story. There is also an assumption that ‘news’ must be published quickly, which is especially difficult for print media. A story that breaks after deadline is often old news by the time it is reported in the paper the next day.

Ultimately the debate over how to define a ‘blog’ vs an ‘article’ is really between journalists themselves, and the relevance, or not, to their publications and mediums. Maybe within the legacy network media space, Laura Payton is correct – that the ‘journalist’ blogs are more informal and add colour. Outside the professional journalism publoshpere, bloggers have little issue with definition…and yes, Kady O’Malley, we completely agree that many blogs report news!

Thanks to Emmett Macfarlane (Twitter @EmmMacfarlane) for the Canadian Supreme Court rulings and pointers. Ross Crockford for the many phone calls, and deep insight from the point of view of an editor. Lorraine Murphy (Twitter @Raincoaster).. and a quote from her..

Remember when CBC used to link to all the blogs that linked to it via a sidebar widget? That was AWESOME. Long gone

and from Jess Hill, ABC World producer and reporter (Australia)

Jess Hill on Blogs and Journalism

Jess Hill – ABC Australia

See also a previous blog post ‘Why Journalists need to Think like Bloggers’ and Google Scholar links

As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome. especially if you are a blogger…

A previous post rated the candidates in The City of Victoria and District of Saanich actively using social media as part of their campaign communication strategy – with those in mind it is now possible to make some judgements around who won/lost and if social media played a role.

Noting that incumbents generally have the advantage of name recognition, the real surprise was in Victoria. All previous councillors ran leaving no open seat, yet three sitting councillors, including two directly associated and aligned with incumbent Mayor Dean Fortin (who won) were defeated…

Victoria BC Municipal results

Mayoral Candidates (4)

10080 – Re-elected: Dean Fortin (incumbent): Website : Facebook (2249 friends) : Twitter (1503 followers, 277 updates)
4229 – #2 Paul Brown (Open Victoria): Website : Facebook (122 friends) : Twitter (67 followers, 113 updates)
2206 – #3 Steve Filipovic : Website : Facebook (309 friends) : Twitter (90 followers, 336 updates)
161 – #4 David Shebib: Twitter (13 followers, 124 updates) : Facebook (230 friends)

Council Candidates (8 incumbents, 12 challengers)

8940 – Geoff Young (incumbent) : Website : Facebook (friends info blocked)
8803 – Charlayne Thornton-Joe (incumbent) : Website : Facebook (546 friends) : Twitter (34 followers, 2 updates)
8523 – New: Lisa Helps: Website : Facebook (192 friends) : Twitter (387 followers, 590 updates)
8419 – New: Ben Isitt : Website : Facebook (friends info blocked) : Twitter (197 followers, 36 updates)
7493 – Marianne Alto (incumbent) : Website : Facebook (388 friends) : Twitter (416 followers, 116 updates)
7321 – Pam Madoff (incumbent) : Website (note- webpage attached to Mayor Dean Fortin’s site)
6904 – New: Shellie Gudgeon: Website : Facebook (45 friends) : Twitter (139 followers, 144 updates)
6793 Chris Coleman (incumbent) : Website

Defeated Incumbents

6343 – John Luton (incumbent) : Website : Facebook (518 friends)
6101 – Lynn Hunter (incumbent) : Facebook (689 Friends)
5719 – Phillippe Lucas (incumbent) : Website : Facebook (115 friends) : Twitter (385 followers, 314 updates)

Defeated Contenders

4866 – Rose Henry: Website : Facebook (785 friends)
3993 – Suhki Lalli (Open Victoria): Website : Facebook (3 friends) : Twitter (1 follower, 3 updates)
3923 – Linda McGrew (Open Victoria) : Website : Facebook (21 friends) : Twitter (59 followers, 112 updates)
2777 – Aaron Hall (Open Victoria) : Website : Facebook (298 friends) : Twitter (1018 followers, 6205 updates)
2014 – John Turner
1519 – Robin Kimpton: Website : Facebook (11 friends)
1055 – Saul Anderson: Website
757 – Sean Murray
682 – John Valentine: Website : Facebook (32 friends)
Note – social media follower numbers are as of November 10th, 2011. In most cases those numbers rose before the November 19th election.

The Role of Social Media

There is no doubt the majority of municipal campaigns for Mayor or council utilized social media, alongside a website, as part of an overall communication strategy. What is interesting is that the number of followers, or updates, had little correlation to direct votes. Some, like council contender Aaron Hall, began the campaign with an apparent advantage of over 1018 Twitter followers, yet he ended with a total vote far less than other non incumbents with less online activity. Others such as Lisa Helps appeared with a beginning disadvantage, yet managed to correlate online activity to persuasion.

Of course, much is at play in any campaign beyond online activity. Simply going into an election with name recognition has an advantage – along with active door knocking, funds for advertising and signs, mainstream media attention, positive results in all-candidates meetings. Yet, it is noteworthy, the three new council candidates: Ben Isitt, Lisa Helps and Shellie Gudgeon who unseated incumbents in Victoria were very active on social media, more so than John Luton and Lynn Hunter – although defeated Councillor Phillippe Lucas was active. The message here might be simply….the message.

Content vs Numbers

Saanich Polling Sign

The number of friends/followers on social media platforms is important, and can be an indicator of interest. That does not automatically translate into support. Followers could be family and friends outside of a voting region, media, even opponents watching a candidates activity. However the higher a follower number can indicate greater positive voter interest: there are only so many media, family etc. to plump an account.

Where candidates, now new council members, Lisa Helps, Shellie Gudgeon and Ben Isitt did well on social media, was utilization. Lisa especially used open ended questions, asked for feedback, used video via YouTube and thanked followers/mentions. That form of engagement drove her numbers higher on a daily basis, and likely assisted in her coming third overall in total votes with 8523, higher than 3 re-elected councillors…

“Social media seem to draw the same audience for candidates, just on a different platform,” Wright said. “It’s not attracting new voters. It’s retaining those who support them.”

And now that it’s become mainstream, it has to be done well to engage voters, he said. Wright points to Victoria candidate Lisa Helps, who won a council seat, and Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard, who was re-elected despite facing a significant challenge from David Cubberley, as example of politicians using social media well.

“You should ask open-ended questions that allow people to interact. Be yourself, say thank you a lot, react to feedback,” Wright said. “And keep it up once the election is over.” via Times Colonist: Social media usage way up in election campaign; voter turnout, not so much by Kim Westad

Voter Turnout, a Disturbing Trend

Percent of Voter Participation

True for the British Columbia municipal elections, the recent Federal and Provincial votes across Canada, and Western democracies – voter participation is decreasing,  despite the promise of open communication platforms provided by social media. Yet in between election cycles, interest in particular issues ranging from the environment to income inequality, arts funding to education have driven more people to online petitions, forums, blogs and directly onto the streets, than actually vote. There is obvious interest in issues, less interest, or maybe trust, in the politics that drive the policies. The Occupy movement is a visible reaction to that trend.

Turnout in Victoria barely budged the recent lows at 26.35%, Saanich was up at 25.35% with the highest within the 13 municipality Capital Regional District for Sooke at 41.92% – the average for the province was 29.51% – Full municipal list via CivicInfo.bc.ca

One reason might be that the active users of social media demand almost instant feedback. Active Twitter and Facebook users tend to be better informed, the age demographic is rapidly moving from the ‘youth’ 18-24 years model to +45 yrs, and they tend to vote – or not, especially in cases where a politician is not meeting expectations within the communication medium of the voter.

Some pundits and observers blame low voter turnout on political parties and candidates, asserting they alone are responsible for decreasing political participation. To some extent that is correct – low vote numbers are indicative of a failure to engage, at the door or online, – that none of the policies or vision relate to the expectations of the majority. That being said, the goal of a party or candidate is to win. Ideally, any campaign would prefer only their voters at the polls. There is no incentive to encourage potential opposition, with campaigns becoming increasingly technologically efficient, identifying the number of votes required for a win, and getting those supporters out on voting day. Any variable – such as a far higher turnout – wrecks strategy.

So it was interesting this week to read Elections BC proposals: Internet voting, registering youth at 16 on the voter list among others. More prevalent is the Op/Ed in the Vancouver Sun which largely places an onus on mainstream media to more comprehensively cover municipal issues. Compulsory voting, online voting, reducing the voting age, more civic education in the school system – all are good ideas, all have possibilities. Yet none address the primary issue: there must be more, direct and relevant, engagement with voters on issues in between elections.

Food for Thought

In order to engage more people, municipal issues must be given a more prominent role in media coverage. Regrettably, this space has recently been dominated—at least on the web—by advertisements for political parties disguised as blogs. These efforts end up being half bad at journalism and half bad at political advocacy, making them a complete disservice to the voters. Both incumbents and opposition must find ways to explain their course of action, without resorting to personal attacks and unfounded accusations, as the decisions are being made—and not just when the election is a few weeks away. Vancouver Sun

An interesting paper by Amanda Clarke, published in the Parliamentary Information and Research Service, Library of Parliament

Because social media offer low-cost and user-friendly means of conducting an ongoing dialogue between citizens and their representative figures and institutions, some argue that social media will grant decision-makers a more sophisticated understanding of the public’s interests and needs. Proponents of this view suggest that this improved understanding will lead to higher quality policies and programs.44 However, as noted earlier, those who currently participate in social media–based political exchanges may not be representative of the general population. As such, the needs and interests they express may not serve as an accurate gauge of public opinion. In addition, as some argue, these new communications technologies will not necessarily alter who is represented or the means and frequency of representation in governing institutions and policy processes.

and thanks…

Over the 5 week British Columbia municipal election campaign there has been a great deal of online, and in person, discussion on the role of social media in politics and issues. This has been among journalists, politicians, academics and voters, which illustrates that many are looking laterally – not only at campaigns and issues at the moment, but how communications and the role of social media can/might/will affect politics and issue engagement in the future.

It was refreshing to not be directly and actively involved in a campaign this time round. Being outside of the ‘election bubble’ allowed for a more objective view on how media was reporting, how social media shaped campaigns, how voters were reacting.

Thanks go to Theresa Lalonde (Twitter @TheresaLalonde) for inclusion in CBC Radio, TV and the CBC website (Story) – Adam Stirling (Twitter @Adam_Stirling) for the online chats and radio interviews on CFAX – Kim Westad, Times Colonist, for the article – Janni Aragon, (Twitter: @JanniAragon) Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria, for aiding and organizing the Political Panel with Social Media Club Victoria, Raul Pacheco-Vega (Twitter @raulpacheco) for the UBC Politics and Policy guest speaker invitation – that was a fantastic experience with his Poli Sci 350 Class -

As always, your thoughts on how the current election was affected by social media, or how it may play a role in the lead to the 2014 municipal elections, are welcome.