Tag: Social Media

Media, Politics, Society

Government Agencies Should Stop Using Facebook And Twitter

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor.

Twitter LogoFacebook LogoThe below is a reprint of an article I authored four years ago concerning the hazard government agencies face in their reliance on censorship wielding organizations such as Facebook and Twitter to disseminate official information to the public. While it offers a quick, cheap, and easy way to offer news to the public, the price demanded in terms of arbitrary third-party rules, ownership of information, public records keeping liability, and reliance on a platform that could remove individual or all postings without prior notice is a risk the public should not be expected to bear.

There are extant messaging protocols that are not dependent upon third-party proprietary services. These include methods such as RSS Feeds, list based e-Mail servers to push information in addition, and standard web pages. Each more than adequately can fulfill the needs of the informed public. But as long as social media companies act as arbitrary and capricious gatekeepers to official information that information is at risk.

It really is also a matter of controlling the integrity of the information. Governments and agencies are opening themselves up to failure and censorship by taking the easy way out and not deploying these technologies in-house. If either of these supposedly “too big to fail” social media platforms suddenly collapsed (either financially or technologically) it would cause an immediate breakdown of a messaging system spanning governments globally. It can be one of the worst forms of single-point failure imaginable. Yet if each agency or government maintained their own system, if one individual server broke down the damage would be rather benign.

The most immediate problem before us presently is the proclivity to censor by social media outfits which might be at odds with legislation or rulemaking relating to public records and news announcements by government.  It is not a duty of the social media companies to edit or formulate this information.

Here is the article:

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Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

Lebanese Government Declares Miss Lebanon Will Not Be Stripped Of Crown After Selfie With Miss Israel

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

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We previously reported HERE the bizarre and saddening controversy involving Miss Universe contestant Saly Greige representing Lebanon who was photographed in a selfie by Miss Israel Doron Matalon. The event caused a row that could have stripped Saly of her crown for violating Lebanese fraternization prohibitions with citizens of Israel.

Now, a Lebanese government official announced that no sanctions would be taken against the young hopeful.

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Free Speech, Media, Society

Facebook Subscribers Can Now Choose Among Fifty Six New Gender Identities

Submitted by Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Facebook LogoLGBT USA Pride FlagFacebook won much acclaim in the LGBT community by configuring their website to allow a great many choices their subscribers may use in their user profiles. Where most websites permit simply male or female, and perhaps a few all encompassing terms such as transgender or transsexual, Facebook consulted with the LBGT community to identify as many gender identities the community encompassed. Subscribers are also provided with additional tools such as which pronouns to use when they are referred to. Subscribers can use ten different options for gender or can choose to keep this information private.

Most outside the LGBT are not familiar with the nomenclature of these new identities but what Facebook is trying to accomplish is to provide as many choices for the individual to describe themselves in a manner as close as possible to what each of them can identify with. With as large a subscriber base as Facebook commands, many believe this will offer some insight and understanding of how analog gender is becoming.
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