Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

Challenging mainstream narratives with social media

May 14th, 2013

A lot has been said about the impact of social media on the dissemination of news and the future of journalism. Opinions seem to span from believing Twitter and Facebook hold the power to bring down dictatorships, to despairing at the space it gives to armchair analysis and knee jerk reactions. One thing can be agreed upon: readers, listeners and viewers now have access to a platform to express themselves and challenge the mainstream narrative of events, Milana Knezevic writes.

Take Newsweek’s #MuslimRage debacle from last September. The magazine’s main article about protests over the controversial film Innocence of Muslims, featured a front page with angry men in traditional clothing, under the headline “MUSLIM RAGE.” Newsweek posted a link on their official twitter feed, encouraging their followers to voice their opinions under the hashtag #MuslimRage. And voice them they did:

On the surface, this shows how a carefully planned “social media strategy” can go wrong in an instant. More importantly, it shows that traditional media outlets no longer have as much control over the conversations around their coverage.

Social media and other online platforms give readers the ability to speak out and take part in setting the agenda. The age of user generated content has also ushered in a kind of crowdsourced fact-checking on a massive scale. If a story is being misreported, readers, listeners and viewers can and will let the authors know. Other examples include the huge social media backlash CNN faced over their article on hormonal female voters ahead of the US elections. On a lighter note, viewers lambasted NBC’s shambolic  Olympics coverage through hashtags like #NBCfail and #ShutUpMattLauer.

From the Magazine: Don’t feed the trolls
An anti-Muslim video demonstrated how the politics of fear dominate the online environment. It’s time we took action, argue Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman.

International in outlook, outspoken in comment, Index on Censorship‘s award-winning magazine is the only publication dedicated to free speech. The latest issue explores the impact the 2008 economic crisis has had on free expression. Subscribe.


Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of this development is the platform it has provided for people outside of the western world to speak back against the often simplistic and incorrect way in which their nations and cultures are reported on in international media.

For instance, some journalists are still likely to present African countries as one, exclusively impoverished and backward entity, which is constantly balancing on the brink of war. Alternatively, there is the increasingly popular, but almost equally tedious and one-dimensional “Africa rising” narrative.

In the past, people had few possibilities to respond to such coverage — if it even reached them.  But this has changed with the dawn of the internet. As foreign reporters parachuted in to cover the Kenyan elections in March, an easy go-to story following the crisis of the 2007-2008 vote was that of ethnic tensions and the potential for violence. However, this narrative was undermined the fact that most Kenyans went to the polls peacefully.  Foreign media promptly experienced the full wrath of a well-informed and snarky Kenyan social media population.

The below are only a few examples of the hashtag #PicturesForStuart, aimed at France 24 anchor Stuart Norval, who trailed their Kenya report with a tweet promising “dramatic pictures”:

Then there was #SomeoneTellCNN, aimed at a particularly sensationalist CNN report titled “Armed as Kenyan vote nears”, featuring an unknown militia, seemingly consisting of a group of men rolling around in the grass with homemade weapons.  The piece was widely mocked.

There was also the more general #TweetLikeAForeignJournalist:

The hashtags trended worldwide. This was picked up by Al Jazeera and the Washington Post among others, and prompted CNN to release a statement defending their coverage. Kenyans had successfully turned the lazy journalism into the dominant story. As Africa is the fastest growing smartphone market in the world, over the coming years millions more will get the opportunity to challenge one-dimensional international reporting.

It’s important not to overstate the power of social media. Traditional media still commands the biggest platforms and audiences, and many sensationalist, ignorant or incorrect reports do remain unchallenged. Twitter in itself is not a solution, it is simply a tool. Used correctly, it provides a legitimate possibility for people to collectively raise their voice and be heard. It provides the platform for those on the ground, those in the know and everyone in between to help bring balance and nuance to big news stories. And that is certainly a positive development for freedom of expression.

 

Global view

March 26th, 2013

Index CEO Kirsty Hughes looks at the current climate for free speech around the world, from press regulation in the UK to ongoing challenges to digital freedom (more…)

New Microsoft report: a step towards transparency

March 21st, 2013

Microsoft released its first ever Law Enforcement Requests Report today, revealing that the company and its subsidiary Skype received over 75,000 requests for user data from law enforcement agencies around the world in 2012. This is an important step towards greater transparency, one privacy and freedom of expression advocates have actively encouraged in recent months.

In a statement  announcing the report, Microsoft’s General Counsel Brad Smith acknowledged “the broadening public interest in how often law enforcement agencies request customer data from technology companies and how our industry responds to these requests” and commended Google and Twitter for leading the way with their annual transparency reports. In addition to user data requests, Google’s reports reveal takedown requests and, for the first time two weeks ago, the number of secretive national security letters it receives from the US government each year. Index encourages Microsoft to reveal this data in subsequent reports. As the number of companies issuing transparency reports grows, we encourage government agencies to do the same in the name of greater transparency and accountability.

Click here to read Microsoft’s report . Standout statistics include:

  • 99 per cent of the 1,558 requests Microsoft complied with by disclosing customer content came in response to lawful warrants from US courts.
  • Skype released no content in response to the 4,713 requests for user data it received but did release user account information in some cases.
  • Two-thirds of the cases in which Microsoft disclosed non-content (ie user account details) came in response to requests from the US, the UK, Turkey, Germany and France.

 

Gathering clouds over digital freedom?

March 11th, 2013

The debate over the direction of the web has just started, and contradictory messages that need careful scrutiny are emerging from governments and corporations alike, says Kirsty Hughes

This article was originally published on Open Democracy, as a part of a week-long series on the future digital freedom guest-edited by Index
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Index interview: Keir Starmer

March 4th, 2013

The Director of Public Prosecutions talks to Index about Twitter, Facebook and free speech
Keir Starmer 600x400
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London court ruling could have grave consequences for free speech online.

February 15th, 2013

A ruling at the Appeal Court in London yesterday could set a dangerous precedent on one of the most important issues in online free speech. The ruling could mean that Internet Service Providers such as Google and Facebook become recognised as “publishers” of material, rather than “mere conduits” and thus legally responsible for material posted on their platforms.

The case, brought by aspiring Conservative politician Payam Tamiz against Google*, hinged on whether or not Google was responsible for comments posted on a blog hosted on its Blogger blogging platform. Tamiz claimed to have been libelled by the “London Muslim” blog, which was hosted on the platform. He had approached Google to ask the blogger to remove the defamatory comments. After five weeks, Google did approach the blogger, asking him to delete the alleged slurs, which he duly did. But Tamiz continued to pursue a case against Google.

Tamiz initially lost his case, and, it should be noted, he lost his appeal this week too.

But the ruling on the appeal raises some interesting questions, and could pave the way for future actions against Internet Service Providers.

The key question seems to be what is a respectable time between being told of alleged defamatory publications, and actually becoming responsible for them.

Referring to Byrne v Deane, a 1937 case involving a defamatory note posted on a golf club notice board, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Richards, commented that “[...]it is in my view open to argument that the time taken was sufficiently long to leave room for an inference adverse to Google Inc on Byrne v Deane principles.

“The period during which Google Inc might fall to be treated on that basis as a publisher of the defamatory comments would be a very short one, but it means that the claim cannot in my view be dismissed on the ground that Google Inc was clearly not a publisher of the comments at all.”

The suggestion is that eventually, Google does become responsible for content.

This reads like a threat to the concept of “mere conduit”, the concept enshrined in the European Union e-Commerce Directive establishing that ISPs cannot be held responsible for content on third party blogs, Facebook updates, tweets etc.

That concept is increasingly coming under threat. Just recently, Belfast lawyer Paul Tweed suggested to the Guardian that companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter could be subject to “EU defamation cases”, in the courts in Ireland, where all three companies have major European bases.

Such a move could seriously threaten the way the web works. We rely on private ISPs to host our various interactions. Making them legally responsible for everything we post could lead to a situation where they severely narrow their terms of service, and even attempt to engage in some kind of censorship in order to avoid litigation. This shift in responsibility is not what the ISPs want, and certainly not what web users need.

*Google is one of Index on Censorship’s funders. Index’s editorial positions are independent of all its funders

High threshold set for social media prosecutions

December 19th, 2012

Guidelines issued today on when criminal charges should be brought against people posting offensive or abusive comments on social media sites could boost free speech (more…)

Social media and free speech

December 19th, 2012

The director of public prosecutions has issued interim guidelines on when criminal charges should be brought against people posting offensive or abusive comments on social media networks

Social Media Dpp