Tag Archives: Twitter

Guardian: Apology to be tweeted 100 times to settle defamation case

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In an unusual settlement a Malaysian social activist has reportedly agreed to apologise 100 times on Twitter as part of a defamation case involving a magazine publisher, according to the Guardian.

The penalty has sparked debate among internet users about the pitfalls of social media in Malaysia where authorities have warned people to be more cautious about what they write on blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

The Guardian reports that the case was in relation to allegations made on Twitter by an individual about the publisher which was followed by an apology on the site a few hours later. But a defamation case ensued resulting in the settlement of 100 apologies on Twitter over a three day period.

Read more here…

Independent: Poll finds judges ‘too ready’ to gag newspapers

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The findings of a poll run by the Independent show  the majority of respondents believe “judges have been too ready to issue gagging orders” which enable the rich and famous to protect their privacy, the paper reports.

People appear to have little sympathy with those high-profile film, television and sports stars who have resorted to the courts to stop embarrassing details of their private lives reaching the public domain, according to the ComRes survey.

According to the Independent, which reported last week that at least 333 gagging orders have been granted in the last five years, 70 per cent of voters in the poll agreed that courts had been “too willing” to grant injunctions.

A total of 65 per cent believed that “celebrities and sports stars owe their lifestyle to their public profile so they should not complain about intrusion into their private lives”.

Although voters disapprove of the efforts that well-known figures make to prevent damaging headlines, they also believe by a narrower majority that privacy rules have failed to keep pace with the rapid growth of the internet.

This comes as a new account appears on Twitter publishing allegations of identities said to be being protected by injunctions. Following a previous case of a Twitter account publishing accusations against celebrities of taking out injunctions, as well as the wide Tweeting of individual identities said to be subject to privacy injunctions, the site reportedly confirmed it would hand over details about users if legally obliged to do so.

According to reports, just this weekend, in an entirely separate case not related to injunctions, a local council was allegedly successful in making Twitter hand over user details for a court case.

Twitter’s new ‘follow’ button encourages readers to follow reporters

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The Telegraph is is among the first websites to add Twitter’s new ‘follow’ button, which allows users to click and follow reporters or the newspaper’s Twitter account in a single click.

In an announcement on the Twitter blog, the social media giant says:

More than 50 sites have added the follow button today, making it easy for you to discover the Twitter accounts of your favourite reporters, athletes, celebrities, and other personalities. Using the follow button is as simple as a single click. You can also see the profile and latest tweets of the account you want to follow by clicking the username next to the button.

An article on Telegraph.co.uk says:

The Telegraph, the only UK newspaper to partner with Twitter for the launch, has added the new buttons to journalists’ pages, blogs and section pages such as news, sport and technology.

The button is simple to add to news sites and blogs. Click here and copy and paste the embed code.

How the five journalists with the greatest online influence use social media

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Ben Goldacre, whose Bad Science blog and column in the Guardian keeps journalists writing about health in check; Hilary Alexander, fashion director of the Telegraph; Jemima Kiss, technology writer at the Guardian; Robert Peston, business editor for the BBC and Mike Butcher, editor of TechCrunch UK have all been ranked by PeerIndex as the five UK journalists with the greatest online influence.

PeerIndex measures social capital using a method very similar to that which Google uses to calculate its page rank. It automatically ranks those with a Twitter account but users can also add LinkedIn, Facebook, Tumblr and Quora accounts.

Here is a snapshot of stats on how the top five people in the list of the UK’s 100 most influential journalists online use social media.

1. Ben Goldacre @bengoldacre

In his own words: “Nerd cheerleader, Bad Science person, stats geek, research fellow in epidemiology, procrastinator.”
All his own tweets? Yes
Followers: More than 114,000
Total tweets: more than 13,500
Following: 765
Average number of tweets per day: 22
Average number of additional followers a day: 258
Facebook: a page with more than 11,000 likes
LinkedIn: no presence

Ben Goldacre’s Twitter account contains a mix of blog posts, retweets, personal opinions and conversations with other users. His behaviour is very active and social, making his feed entertaining and interesting.

2. Hilary Alexander @HilaryAlexander

In her own words: “Fashion and style news from the @Telegraph”
All her own tweets? No, they are also sent by other Telegraph fashion journalists
Followers: Almost 180,000
Total tweets: More than 5,600
Following: 165
Average number of tweets per day: 13
Average number of additional followers a day: 327
Facebook: a page with around 150 likes
LinkedIn: not active

Hilary Alexander is a name journalist who appears on television talking about fashion, hence the substantial following. Her Twitter feed consists of links to her column and comments. There is very little interaction.

3. Jemima Kiss @jemimakiss

In her own words: “Guardian writer, interwebbist and mother, not necessarily in that order. And totally offline, on sabbatical, until 28 May. Ain’t no tweetin’ going on ’til then.” We have spotted the odd rogue tweet, however
All her own tweets? Yes
Followers: More than 24,500
Total tweets: More than 18,000
Following: 581
Average number of tweets per day: 9
Average number of additional followers a day: 35
Facebook: a profile but no page
LinkedIn: 417 connections

Jemima Kiss was the most-followed British journalist on Twitter for a couple of years, but maternity leave allowed others to overtake her, even though she announced her son’s birth online within hours of the fact. When she is active her feed is a very social mix of articles, conversation, pictures and observations.

4. Robert Peston @peston

In his own words: “Business Editor for the BBC”
Followers: More than 36,000
Total tweets: More than 1,400
Following: 171
All his own tweets? Yes, some automated to send links of blog posts
Average number of tweets per day: 16
Average number of additional followers a day: 400
Facebook: a page with 482 likes
LinkedIn: not active

Robert Peston is another “name”. His Twitter account consists extensively of links to articles and observations. However, he does retweet and reference people in his observations even though he is not a conversational tweeter.

5. Mike Butcher @mikebutcher

In his own words: “Editor, TechCrunch Europe: @TCEurope Full bio: mbites.com/contact”
All his own tweets? Yes
Followers: More than 24,000
Total tweets: Almost 20,000
Following: 4,429
Average number of tweets per day: 24
Average number of additional followers a day: 30
Facebook: a profile but no page
LinkedIn: +500 connections

Mike Butcher is another conversational tweeter. It can be difficult to find his articles on his Twitter account because he is always retweeting and chatting as well as writing his observations.

Additional reporting by Sarah Booker.

Twitter to send users emails about RTs and favourites

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Twitter announced yesterday it is phasing in a new function sending emails to users when one of their followers adds their tweets as a favourite or retweets to their followers.

http://twitter.com/#!/twitter/status/72775840978571264

You can choose to stop Twitter emailing you about retweets and when someone favourites your tweets by going to settings > notifications

Twitter notifications

A quick straw poll of Journalism.co.uk followers found opinions are divided on Twitter’s decision to email users when someone you follow retweets or favourites one of your tweets.

 

#bbcsms: Risking failure – Mainstream media v start-ups

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One of the afternoon panels at the BBC’s Social Media Summit today asked the question: Can mainstream media compete with start-ups in social media innovation?

The panel featured Mark Little of Storyful, which provides a platform for those in the centre of the action to build a story and have it published, and Mark Rock of Audioboo, which enables the recording and uploaded of audio which can then be widely shared and published.

There overall message was that the difference between mainstream media and start-ups is the ability to fail and as a result mainstream media is still in the “electrical age” while start-ups have stepped into the digital.

The BBC itself came in for some criticism. Rock said Audioboo was not allowed to be embedded on BBC website, which he called”ludicrous”.

Individuals are the ones pushing innovation. At some point you will lose them. I don’t think you’ve got the right mindset.

Audioboo

“The BBC should be leading innovation in the UK and it’s not,” he later said. Little added that on this side of the Atlantic he feels there is a different attitude to innovation.

I get the sense that if some test product comes out that doesn’t work it’s destined for the bin. We need to try things all the time.

The other issue he added, is the focus on the word “compete”. It is about collaboration instead, he said, with both sides having valuable lessons to learn from the other.

We’ve worked with YouTube and US organisations and learnt a lot about verification and discovery. I don’t care who’s first to break news, it’s the opposite of what it’s all about, collaboration. On social media you need to learn and move forward. I’m still a little disappointed we’re being asked to choose between gurus … For us it is about seeing the problem with mainstream media and finding the solution.

Experimentation is on the cards at the New York Times, fellow panelist Liz Heron from the New York Times said. nuru massage nyc

We don’t really have any social media guidelines – use common sense and just don’t be stupid. We don’t want to scare people into not using social media to it’s full potential.

Part of the Times’ focus in the near future in this area is to bring social media into the high-impact projects the newsroom is working on, such as it did in the run-up to the Oscars.

New York Times awards season

By collaborating with the Times’ developers it enabled users to personalise the story by voting for their favourites and sharing that information with their ‘friends’ using Facebook.

Facebook will give you a lot of info, so we were able to show what kind of person was going in for the Kings Speech, for example, so got some interesting visualisations. In a way we therefore used a form of gamification to engage users. We want to do more to build platforms around our journalism in this way and allow our content to not only  get distributed further but get some interesting information back on our key readers from it.

She added that Facebook, having “cracked the code” of Twitter, was now the focus for experimentation and innovation.

Our journalists have not figured out how to interact with it just yet. We’re working to bring Facebook journalism onto the main page.

Twitter is not being ignored though, with the New York Times’ “ciborg” account having its autofeed turned off next week as an experiment to take the Times’ participation on the platform “to the next level”.

#UKjourn: Growing master list of all UK journalists on Twitter

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Journalism.co.uk is building a master list of UK-based journalists who are regular Twitter users.

We have started to pull together a list using PeerIndex, which measures and ranks the online influence of anyone with a Twitter account. You also have the option to make your PeerIndex score more accurate by linking your LinkedIn, Facebook, Tumblr and Quora accounts.

Some Twitter accounts are not yet analysed by PeerIndex. If your is not, let us know at @journalismnews using the hashtag #UKjourn, we will send your Twitter handle to PeerIndex and tell them you are not linked.

If you are not on the list and are a UK-based journalist who should be, you can let us know in the same way.

This is a work in process – so do bear with us.

Guardian: Hunt rules out new privacy law

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Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has ruled out the introduction of a new privacy law, the Guardian reported today, following a meeting with justice secretary Ken Clarke.

This comes before the conclusion of a review of the use of superinjunctions by a special committee chaired by Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger, and expected shortly.

Hunt admitted the current situation was “bordering on farce”. Numerous gag orders have been granted to footballers, celebrities and other public figures and some of their names published on Twitter anyway.

After meeting with Clarke, Hunt said: “I don’t believe a privacy law is the way forward. We’re not minded to have a new privacy law but we’re not ruling out the need for legislative changes.”

See the full report here…

Earlier today the alleged details of a superinjunction obtained by former RBS chief Sir Fred Goodwin were raised in the House of Lords by Lib Dem peer Lord Stoneham, who was protected under parliamentary privilege.

Twitter limits third-party apps access to your DMs

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Third-party applications that do not need access to direct messages will no longer have it, Twitter has announced.

There are hundreds of thousands of applications that can allow access to Twitter accounts and from next month many will face limitations.

Apps that access direct messages will ask for permissions again, Twitter has said in its blog, giving users more control.

When you first connect an application to Twitter, we’ll give you more detailed information about what you’re allowing the app to do with your account. These activities may include reading your Tweets, seeing who you follow, updating your profile, posting Tweets on your behalf, or accessing your direct messages. If you’re not comfortable with the level of access an application requests, simply say “No, thanks”.

You can see a summary of the applications you’ve approved and make changes by going to “settings” then clicking on the “applications” tab in your Twitter account.

NY Times: ‘US editors still don’t want journalists to be human’

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The New York Times has an article by Mathew Ingram of Gigaom who feels US news editors seem to be saying “don’t allow your journalists to be human, under any circumstances” when it comes to social media. The article is based on a social media policy overview from the American Society of News Editors which finds that “breaking news on Twitter is not advisable”, according to news editors.

There’s the typical media-industry bogeyman that lies behind most of these policies: the staffer who types things into Twitter without thinking, maybe even (gasp!) breaking news on the social network before his organisation has a chance to craft a story. And what happens then? Chaos! The very foundations of the media industry crumbling, dogs and cats living together — mass hysteria. None of that actually happens, of course, but most traditional media policies seem to harbor the fear that it might.

Ingram goes on to say:

To take just one example, the report mentions the case of Octavia Nasr, a senior editor at CNN with decades of experience in the Middle East, who posted something on Twitter expressing regret that a Hezbollah leader had died. Although he was known as a terrorist, Nasr said he was also a force for tolerance toward women in the region, and that’s why she said what she did. Defensible? Totally, as I wrote at the time. But CNN fired her. The ASNE report uses this as an example of why people should be careful what they say, but I think it’s an example of why organizations like CNN are dinosaurs.

Do people express themselves on social networks? Of course they do. Should they avoid being stupid or offensive? Yes. But to expect them to have no opinions — and then to fire or sanction them when they do — is naive in the extreme.

The report also states that breaking news on Twitter is not advisable — those kinds of reports should be saved for the newspaper, it says, because the purpose of social media is to “drive traffic” to the reporter or editor’s website. So presumably that means New York Times  media reporter Brian Stelter shouldn’t have re-tweeted the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, and shouldn’t have pointed out how credible the report was because it came from the former Secretary of Defense’s chief of staff.

Ingram’s full article is at this link.

Are the social media policies of UK newsrooms more progressive than the US? Or is the message from editors that journalists should now be human and breaking news should not be the preserve of the newspaper?