Showing all posts tagged Twitter
First they came for the Tweeters
There are growing signs of collusion between the Zionist lobby, fundamentalists who want the government to tell us what to hear and see and politicians such as Joe Lieberman who never saw a war against Muslims they didn’t like. Now this. It must be resisted: Twitter has been threatened with legal action by an Israeli…
Syria may be convulsing but foreign intervention must be avoided
The situation in Syria continues to descend into a civil war-like situation, according to people on the ground. This interesting report, by BBC journalist Paul Wood, offers a disturbing insight into the Assad regime’s desperation and confusion since the beginning of the revolution: Qutaiba, a 22-year-old engineering student, had never been arrested before Syrian security…
Just what the world doesn’t need; US politicians telling us what to read online
This is the inevitable push by the “war on terror” crowd who have no problems with war propaganda from our side – the glorious fighting machines of Israel, America, Britain or the West – but the evil enemy must be silenced: American congressmen are calling on Twitter to block Taliban propagandists from the micro-blogging site.…
When the state wants to read my tweets if I slam official view
Of course, such plans are framed as a simple desire to be able to respond to questions or problems. And that may be sometimes true. But we should always be skeptical of major bodies looking to expand an ability to spy on average citizens: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) has invited companies…
Anyone can make a revolution (or can they?)
The upcoming Festival of Dangerous Ideas is taking place at the Sydney Opera House in October. Feel threatened. I’m involved in the following event on 2 October at 6pm: In Egypt and Tunisia we have seen ordinary people come together to claim democracy and human rights in the face of oppressive regimes, with Twitter and…
Who or what really caused the London riots?
Finally, hopefully, some answers: The causes and consequences of the English riots last month, the most serious bout of civil unrest in a generation, will be examined in a study by the Guardian and the London School of Economics. Researchers will interview hundreds of people who were involved, in the first empirical study into the…
Arab revolutions ain’t all about Wikileaks or censorship but damn fine bravery
Despite what Wikileaks may claim – the release of US embassy cables undeniably revealed the depravity of the relationship between Washington and various dictators but they hardly sparked the Arab Spring – social media played a part in the uprisings and subsequent changes. As I argue in the recently released and updated edition of my…
Lesson from London riots; don’t trust governments to react rationally online
Evidence for the prosecution: Analysis of more than 2.5m Twitter messages relating to the riots in England has cast doubt on the rationale behind government proposals to ban people from social networks or shut down their websites in times of civil unrest. A preliminary study of a database of riot-related tweets, compiled by the Guardian,…