Instruction in social media essential in journalism education

According to an online news pioneer, modern journalism students do not naturally see the social media as an important aspect of their professional repertoire. -db
MediaShift
August 30, 2010
By Alfred Hermida
Social media is such a new phenomenon that it is easy for someone to claim to be an expert in the subject. A search on Twitter [...]

How is Social Media Impacting Free Speech Rights?

While social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter increase their user base,  and search engines like Google continue to grow, many wonder if they will become the gatekeepers of information of the future. – SMD
Social Media and First Amendment
Commentary
July 6, 2010
By  Eric Kuhn, CNN Audience Interaction Producer
Aspen, Colorado (CNN) – The future of free speech [...]

Middle Eastern countries censoring Internet

Last week Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey acted to block more content from the Internet. Afghanistan is installing filters on the categories of alcohol, dating and social networking, gambling and pornography. -db

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Opinion
June 26, 2010
By Shari Steele
Yet another country has decided to shut down key parts the Internet. Kathleen Reen at Internews reports that, as [...]

Government agency launches website to help public monitor oil spill

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has launched GeoPlatform.gov, a data-rich website to enable the pubic to track the spread of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico and find out other crucial information. -db
NextGov
June 14, 2010
By Bob Brewin
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched a slick and data-rich website on Monday that the public [...]

Pennsylvania attorney general dropping subpoena of Twitter for critics’ identity

The Pennsylvania attorney general has decided not to subpoena Twitter for the identity of critics of his successful conviction in a recent political corruption investigation. In asking for the subpoena, Attorney General Tom Corbett was attempting to find out if one of the critics was the man convicted of corruption to determine if the man [...]

Blogger challenges subpoena ordering Twitter to reveal his identity after critical posts on Pennsylvania politician

A blogger on Twitter is challenging a grand jury subpoena seeking his identity after he posted criticism of Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett. The subpoenas are usually limited to criminal cases, and the grand jury did not say what crime the blogger committed. -db
Wired
May 19, 2010
By David Kravets
An anonymous blogger critical of Pennsylvania Attorney [...]

Robust journalism emerging amid reports of failed newspapers

Even though newspapers are filing for bankruptcy and laying off reporters, new technology is delivering on its promise to provide the public with more news and in greater detail than ever. -db

First Amendment Center
Commentary
April 18, 2010
By Gene Policinski

Headlines — ironically, given this subject — have proclaimed for some time that newspapers in the United States [...]

Library of Congress to make Twitter posts available to public

The Library of Congress is launching am ambitious effort to acquire and archive all public Twitter posts starting from the beginning of Twitter in 2006. It will collect more than 50 million Tweets a day and make them available to the public after a six-month period. -db

NextGov
April 14, 2010
By Emily Long
The Library of Congress [...]

Courtroom bans on social media spreading across United States

The U.S. court system is rapidly adopting rules against the use of social media in the courtroom. Jurors are increasingly instructed to stay off Facebook and Twitter and refrain from using the Internet to research cases. -db
Online Media Daily
March 10, 2010
By Laurie Sullivan
No tweeting or status updates in court or deliberation rooms. Judges have been [...]

New access to social media may precipitate change in Iran

After the U.S. Treasury Department decided to exclude social media services from sanctions against Iran, there is hope that these services will help Iranians  effect political change. Iran is a special case in that nearly half of the population uses the internet. -db
Citizen Media Law Project
Commentary
March 11, 2010
By Arthur Bright

Anyone who followed the Green Movement protests [...]

International internet freedom gets boost in latest regulations proposed by Obama administration

The U.S. Treasury Department announced changes in its sanctions against Cuba, Iran and the Sudan which allows internet service to these countries even when they are under U.S. sanctions. -db
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Commentary
March 10, 2010
By Danny O’Brien
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on Monday key amendments to the regulation of United States sanctions [...]

Bandwidth problems threaten to curtail military’s social networking

The Pentagon is allowing the troops to use such sites as Facebook and Twitter, but it may be difficult for them to actually sign on since, especially in places like Afghanistan, bandwidth is limited. -db
The Hill
March 1, 2010
By Tony Romm
Trouble with the Pentagon’s strapped Web network could threaten its new decision to permit service [...]

Italian court deals setback to Google and internet freedom

Three Google executives were convicted of violating Italy’s privacy laws and responsible for posts by third parties, a blow to world internet freedom and particularly destructive to Italy’s participation in e-commerce. -db
The New York Times
February 25, 2010
By Rachel Donadio
ROME — Three Google executives were convicted of violating Italian privacy laws on Wednesday, the first [...]

Olympic athletes allowed to twitter

Despite the International Olympic Committee’s confusion about blogs and journalism, it appears that Olympic athletes will be allowed much greater freedom to tweet from the games than previously thought. -db
Citizen Media Law Project
Commentary
February 9, 2010
By Arthur Bright
Rejoice, all ye Olympian fans, the International Olympic Committee (”IOC”) has said that its athletes can use Twitter!
Apparently there’s been [...]

Olympic athletes in winter games confused by rules restricting social media

Olympic social media rules bar athletes from acting as reporters since they lack accreditation, but they can twitter in the first person and send reports from the sidelines. -db

Wired
February 5, 2010
By Mark McClusky

American skier Lindsey Vonn, one of the potential stars of the 2010 Winter Olympics, told her nearly 35,000 Twitter followers that she would [...]

Libel suit based on tweet dismissed

A Illinois state court dismissed a defamation suit against a tenant who complained by tweet to 20 of her friends that her apartment was moldy. The judge ruled that the tweet was too vague to qualify as libel. -DB

Citizen Media Law Project
Commentary
January 21, 2010
By Sam Bayard

Andrew Wang of Chicago Breaking News reports that an Illinois [...]

Growing numbers scale China’s digital wall

Chinese citizens are finding ways to get around China’s firewalls after the government shut down pornography sites, blogs, online video sites, Facebook, and Twitter during the Beijing Olympics. -DB

The New York Times
January 16, 2010
By Brad Stone and David Barboza

The Great Firewall of China is hardly impregnable.
Just as Mongol invaders could not be stopped by the [...]

Twitter emerges as vehicle for publicizing final health care bill

Congressional leaders announced that the final health care bill will go online on Twitter 72 hours prior to its consideration on the floor, a move that firmly establishes the social media as a significant player in providing public assess to the nation’s business. -DB

Sunlight Foundation
Opinion
January 15, 2010
By Paul Blumenthal
So, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer announced [...]

Bloggers replace mainstream media in covering local government

Bloggers using Twitter and Facebook are filling the void to cover local government meetings, taking the place of mainstream media suffering losses of revenue as the internet takes its share of ads. -DB
MediaShift
January 14, 201
By Steven Davy

Traditionally, newspaper reporters were dispatched to cover the mundane proceedings of a local government in action: the city council meeting. [...]

Prop 8 hearing: Strict enforcement of laws against assault needed rather than curtailing TV coverage

A Citizen Media Law Project blogger argues that the Supreme Court should recognize that it is against California law to assault witnesses and that not televising the proceedings will not protect witnesses in what promises to be a widely publicized event. To allow the broadcast on YouTube would provide a boost to freedom of the [...]

Diet doctor sues Kim Kardashian over alleged libelous twitters

Observers think that Dr. Sanford Siegal has a weak case in his libel suit against celebrity Kim Kardashian. Siegal created the “Cookie Diet” and subsequently posted that Kim Kardashian had lost weight using the cookie diet. Siegel sued over Kardashian’s tweets that stated it was false that she was on the cookie diet and that [...]

India all a-twitter as government ministers clash over use of social media

An Indian junior minister got a reprimand from his boss for using Twitter to criticize the government’s immigration policy, provoking discussion about open debate in a democracy and the role of electronic media. -DB
The Los Angeles Times
December 31, 2009
By Mark Magnier

NEW DELHI – It takes a lot fewer than 140 characters to say, “Do you [...]

Written word alive and well

A study done by the University of San Diego and other universities revealed that Americans are reading far more words as the new technologies take hold. With the advent of TV, reading was in decline but has rebounded, tripling from 1980 to 2008. -DB

Wired
Commentary
December 29, 2009
By Eliot Van Buskirk

Conventional wisdom holds that YouTube, videogames, cable [...]

Media project publishes guide to live-blogging in courts

The Citizen Media Law Project has published a guide to live coverage in courts using the social media. Since not all judges allow electronic devices and local laws sometimes prohibit the devices, it is important to know how to avoid legal problems in live-blogging or tweeting in the courtroom.-DB

Citizen Media Law Project
December 10, 2009
By [...]

EFF sues to force government to provide records of spying on social networks

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, working with the UC Berkeley law school, has filed suit against a number of federal agencies who have not responded to Freedom of Information Act requests for information about their surveillance of social networking sites. -DB

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Press Release
December 1, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), working with the [...]

First Amendment panel finds promise, pitfalls in social media

By Donal Brown
The panel on journalists and social media at the First Amendment Coatition Assembly offered wise advice and a few emphatic warnings, chief among them: everything a journalist puts up on Twitter or Facebook or other social media is public.
Speaking at the assembly October 24 in Los Angeles on the panel entitled “Twitter with [...]

London: Barrage from Twitter, Goggle, Wikipedia forces disclosure of analysis of toxic dump in Ivory Coast

The New York Times
October 19, 2009
By Noam Cohen
A British court issued an injunction prohibiting the publication of an analysis of toxic waste dumped in the Ivory Coast by a contractor hired by Trifigura, a shipping company. Trafigura claimed the analysis confidential communication meant for their lawyers. But as one media law expert pointed out, any [...]

Pro sports’ bans on Twitter could provoke First Amendment protest

Professional athletes filling time around games by tweeting whatever was on their minds, some of it critical, are now facing rules restricting their freedom. Questions  remain about whether the bans violate the free speech rights of the athletes and whether they even care enough to challenge the bans. -DB

The Dallas Morning News
Opinion
October 5, 2009
By Kevin Sherrington

In [...]

FBI searches house of man arrested for using Twitter to coordinate protests in Pittsburgh

The FBI last Thursday spent 16 hours searching the Queens house of a man arrested in Pittsburgh on September 24 at the Group of 20 summit. The man, who claims to be an anarchist, is facing criminal charges of helping  protesters avoid arrest after they were ordered to disperse. -DB

The New York Times
October 5, 2009

By Colin [...]

As newspapers decline, politicians use social media to connect with voters

In some communities, social media is the only way politicians can reach voters, at times receiving immediate responses that speed the political process. -DB

MediaShift
September 29, 2009
By Steven Davy

When television cameras panned across the room full of senators and representatives during the recent presidential address to a joint session of Congress, the audience at home [...]

New Defense Department policy may allow troops to tweet and blog

In the face of a raft of military prohibitions against social networks. a new draft policy recognizes the power of the networks and seeks to balance the risks with the gains. -DB
Wired
Commentary
September 29, 2009
By Noah Shachtman
The Defense Department may allow troops and military employees to freely access social networks — if a draft policy circulating around [...]

Legality in question: Publication of stolen Twitter employee’s e-mails

A legal expert says that in the case of TechCrunch’s publication of stolen Twitter documents, should the matter ever go to trial, it may come down to whether the court considers bloggers “press” and thereby under the protection by California’s shield law. -DB
MediaShift
Commentary
August 25, 2009
By Jeffrey D. Neuburger
In June of this year, the personal email account [...]

Social networking ban on convicted sex offenders deemed unconstitutional

A blogger for the Citizen Media Law Project says that the new Illinois law making it illegal for convicted six offenders to use social networking websites is probably unconstitutional and certainly unenforceable. -DB
Citizen Media Law Project
Commentary
August 20, 2009
By Andrew Moshirnia
The memory of pain can be one of the best painkillers. Anyone who has had the misfortune [...]

Pentagon wants public input on social networking policy

Faced with the arduous task of framing a policy on social media that balances security and the need for troops to communicate with friends and family, the Defense Department is asking the public for their ideas. -DB
NextGov
August 10, 2009
By Bob Brewin
How do you develop a policy for using social media in the Defense Department that balances [...]

Security concerns may shut down military social networks for military personnel

Just as the U.S. military is beginning to embrace Twitter and Facebook, it may have to close these sites down to keep out hackers and cybercrooks. -DB
Wired
July 30, 2009
By Noah Shachtman
The U.S. military is strongly considering a near-total ban on Twitter, Facebook, and all other social networking sites throughout the Department of Defense, multiple sources within [...]

Public officials not twittering advantageously

A public relations expert says that a scant number of public officials have used Twitter to address their constituencies on substantive issues in a thoughtful way. -DB
MediaShift
Commentary
July 29, 2009
By Mark Hannah
Are high profile public officials using Twitter as a noble tool to bypass the proverbial “mainstream media filter” and communicate directly with constituencies? Or do they [...]

Homeland Security first government agency to harness social media

The Homeland Security Department is the first cabinet-level agency to implement Obama directives on social media, offering a YouTube channel and formulating plans to use Twitter in event of disasters. -DB
NextGov
July 22, 2009
Associated Press
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Homeland Security Department relaunched its Web site Wednesday and became the first Cabinet-level agency to follow the tech-savvy White House [...]

TechCrunch’s publication of hacked Twiter documents may be protected

Attorney Sam Bayard of the Citizen Media Law Project says that TechCrunch’s controversial publication of hacked documents from Twitter is legal if the content is of “legitimate concern to the public.” -DB
Citizen Media Law Project
Commentary
July 16, 2009
By Sam Bayard
There’s an interesting debate afoot about TechCrunch’s decision to publish selected documents it received from someone who hacked [...]