TWITTER and other social networks... for all of those doubting their value

for intelligence agencies and normal citizens... the fact that the US Department of State asked the owners to keep it going should tell you something.

By the way... some of those tweets looked like regular military traffic...

So yes, to those who doubt their value. Individually you are very correct. In the aggregate you are wrong. And if we ever had a major incident HERE... you may see those services go down for maintenance... after all, they are not useful at all...

:sarcasm:

But your free clue, bat on the side of the head, what have you... should be the US Department of State telling Twitter don't go down for maintenance.

What else will they use to organize and incite riots? :)

and are reliant on Twitter for information.

When somebody asks you to DU this poll, that's nothing more than trying to sway public opinion with false representation.

from the "I don't need to know when you're brushing your teeth" crowd. Twitter is a communications tool. Nothing more, nothing less.

Good post.

Sid

Something that allows instant posting at 140 characters max is going to take a much different shape, better or worse, than blogs for example.

my point was that just because some people use that communications tool for mundane purposes, doesn't mean that it is without value. The "twitter is useless" posts a month or two ago completely failed to recognize how powerful and useful a tool Twitter could actually be.

Sid

but when there's a fast breaking news story, it's been great.

The information is entirely unverifiable and on the cusp of hyperbole.

As a completely inactive observer, there may actually be little value to learning of breaking news through such a flawed filter. What difference, in your life, does it make if this information comes now unverified, or verified 24 hours or so later? Although it may satisfy your curiosity, are we reading too much into that ability too soon?

But for real-time organizing in an emergency situation, it may in fact have value (although, what percent of the people use it and are plugged in?)? Is it not accessible enough to be used readily by an entire population, which may be able to mobilize by more traditional means? Can it be used to spread disinformation, or incite organization from a foreign agent? To rely on it as the sole method of social organization in emergencies, well, presents some problems.

I'm not holding my breath on that one.

:crazy:

:)

Different reports in different words by different sources all saying the same thing are a little more believable, like the use of Hezbollah militia from Lebanon. After all, the Iranians would be able to tell them apart form Iranian Arabs by their accents.

such as the video of today's silent protest, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLo_6Qp1eTk.

It's stuff you're just not going to get from McNews, especially in this country.

If the Obama admin (and the M$M) is decrying the lack of communication modalities in Iran, then why did Obama's OFAC shut down IM services in Iran last month?


-Do you know that the Obama admin shut down MS, Yahoo, Google, Messenger to Iran last month?-
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5863428

Is going to mean the end of the Cable MSM..

I use it constantly, me and about 5 other DU'rs :)

Watch it happen and remember you heard it from the guy that ran Takebackthemedia.com with some real effects here and there for over 5 years..

I've got some ideas for furthering Twitter's reach if I could ever get funding, change the face of Media forever :)

changing its stupid fucking name, as well as renaming "tweets" (for the twits), and at least increasing its max size to 140 *words*, if nothing else.

It's You who has to change..

My mind is still limber enough to make the leap, and tolerant enough to not give too much of a fuck when it don't matter :)

it's the Young Peoples world now, nice of them to allow us along for the ride..

I could see intelligence and counter intelligence agencies conducting tweet exploit campaigns.

Hell... Anon alone could easily do something like that.

Seeing that the US OFAC recently shut down IM services, leaving Twitter as the primary conduit for info, and the State Dept is now involved w/Twitter staying up and running ...

as well as Facebook.