Tag: Twitter

Recently Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, had bought out Twitter.

This takeover has been seen not as the kind of takeover where one wants to invest in a company but more of a political move. It came about in the runup to the 2002 Midterm elections in the USA, an election cycle that impacts members of Congress and significant state-level officials like governors and secretaries of state.

This is because this Midterm election cycle is a “do-or-die” moment for American democracy due to whether state officials or members of Congress that support Donald Trump and his election-denial rhetoric come in to power, with it being the first Midterms after the January 6 2021 insurrection on the Capitol which was about denying the legitimate result of the 2020 Presidential election.

The goal of this takeover was to convert Twitter in to a so-called “free-speech” social media platform like Parler, Gab or TruthSocial including to reinstate Donald Trump’s Twitter presence. This included the laying off of at least 4000 staff especially those involved in content moderation.

Here, Twitter has lost it as far as brand-safety and social respect is concerned with a significant number of household names removing their advertising or online presence from Twitter. As well, increasingly most of us are considering or taking steps to limit our presence on or remove ourselves from Twitter.

As well, this takeover has ended up in a spat between Elon Musk and Apple about the possibility of Apple removing the Twitter native mobile app from the iOS App Store. This is part of Apple’s effort to make the iOS App Store a clean bouse with content and apps that are fit for work and the family home. Lately, this has manifested in Apple destroying their Twitter account and removing its posts.

Competing social platforms

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Hive Social

The Meta-run social-media platforms i.e. Facebook and Instagram are acquiring new appeal as a business-to-consumer social-media presence. This is in addition to LinkedIn acquiring a stronger relevance in the business-to-business space. It is because these social networks are maintaining some form of proper content moderation that keeps them brand-safe and with some form of social licence.

For example, these platforms are being used by brands, public figures and the like as a means to distribute information “from the horse’s mouth” like press releases. This is in addition to them buying space on them to run their campaigns. Similarly, the established media are maintaining their presence on these platforms, typically as an “on-platform” presence for their news services.

Another network being put on the map is Hive Social which is being run as an alternative to Twitter with the same user experience. This is yet another platform with a centralised user experience but is facing some early problems due to its success as a Twitter alternative. Here, you may find that the service availability may not be strong and there will be some security issues.

Mastodon and the Fediverse

Another platform that has gained a lot of heat over the last few weeks is Mastodon. This is a decentralised Twitter-style social network where each “Instance” server works similar to a small bar or café where the staff have the finger on the pulse as far as the patrons are concerned. But each Mastodon Instance is linked to each other via the Fediverse which works in a similar way to email.

The Fediverse uses the ActivityPub publish-and-subscribe protocol and relies on interconnected servers and decentralised networking protocols. It is used by Mastodon and other services like PeerTube and Pieroma. In this space, each server for a platform is called an Instance and these link or “federate” with other servers to give the appearance of a large social network. But the Instance owner has the upper hand on what goes on in that Instance server.

These setups could also be seen as being similar to the bulletin-board systems that existed before the Internet was popular where most of them were interconnected using FidoNet as a means to store and forward messages and emails between the BBS systems.

When you create an account on a Mastodon Instance, you can add a link to a Website you run and this is used as a way to authenticate you. But you also have to add a link on your Website to your Mastodon presence for you to be authenticated, which then leads to a blue tick.

At the moment, there is support for only one user account per Mastodon Instance server so you can’t really run a “private” and a “public” account on the same Instance. It could work for people who use a particular Mastodon Instance associated with their work for public-facing posts as well as a private account for personal posts on a community Mastodon server. There doesn’t seem to be support for “group” accounts that can be operated by multiple users at the moment.

But with other open-source software efforts, Mastodon will be subject to continual tweaks and revisions to bring it to what people will want out of it. There may also be activity taking place to improve the establishment of Mastodon Instance servers such as porting to popular business server environments or integration with business-computing account datasets.

Other technologies worth considering

Online forums and similar technologies

Old-school “pre-social-media” technologies like online forums of the phpBB or vBulletin kind, or email-list platforms like listservs may have to be used. As well, the group functionality offered by Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber, Signal and Telegram come in to their own here as a limited-circulation Twitter replacement.

Blogs and news Websites

The traditional blog and the regularly-up;dated news Website or “update page” are becoming more relevant in this time. Here, these will be augmented with an RSS Webfeed or an email update offered by the site that comes out on a regular basis.

What can organisations, content authors and public figures do?

Organisations, content authors and public figures can keep a Website alive with the latest information if they aren’t already doing this. This would work really well with a blog or news page that is always up-to-date and these resources are best augmented with at least one RSS Webfeed that reflects the updates that are made.

The RSS Webfeed can be used to feed a reputable email-publishing platform like Feedblitz or Mailchimp so that people get the updates in their email inbox. Your LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or other brand-safe social-media presences can come in to their own here as well when you post a link to your latest posts there and are worth maintaining. As well, you could consider setting up shop on Hive Social which is becoming a viable alternative to Twitter.

Small-time operators should work with a Webhost that offers a range of online services at reasonable prices. These should include email, Website hosting and hosting one or two online services in a secure manner.

If you can, you may have to investigate creating a business-wide Mastodon instance. This is about having your own space that you control and is something that your IT staff or Webhost can offer, especially if they are familiar with Linux. Here, you could have usernames that reflect your workgroups or staff who want to have a public Mastodon account.

Let’s not forget creating online forums using the likes of bbPress, phpBB or vBulletin for your company or industry. Even vertical-market software that suits your organisation’s type or the industry it works in like religion or education could come in to its own.

Conclusion

The takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk as a political affair is showing that there is the risk of online services falling in to the wrong hands. Here, an emphasis is being placed on a plurality of social media and other online services that can be moderated to preserve sanity on the Internet.

Spotify login screen with option to login using Facebook

A trend that is being associated with online services or applications is to provide “social sign-on” for new and existing users of these services. This is based around the concept of single sign-on where you use one set of credentials verified by one service to authenticate with one or more other services. This time, the credential pool that is used for authenticating users is your membership with a social network like Facebook or Twitter. The expression is sometimes extended to cover other authentication-data pools like Microsoft’s authentication services associated with Outlook.com/Hotmail, Windows 8 or XBox; or Google’s authentication services used for GMail and YouTube.

TripAdvisor webpage with social sign-on and personalisation from Facebook

In a social sign-on arrangement, your credentials are held and tested at the social-network’s servers and both the online service and the social network create a unique “token” or “key” to link and authenticate your presence on these services. The common methods that these services use are based around the OAuth or OpenID protocols used for single sign-on across multiple services.

Social sign-on concept diagram – relationship between the social network and online service

As well, your social attributes (name, birthdate, etc) that you have stored on the social network’s servers would be copied in to your account on the online service when this account is being provisioned. You will know about this when your social network pops up a screen asking you whether to allow the online service to gain access to your details held at the social network.

Advantages

There are some key advantages with using a social sign-on setup.

One is to benefit from a simplified provisioning process for your online service. This is without the need to key in the same data across multiple services. It also includes use of a pre-authenticated email address which is considered of high value with forums, commenting facilities and the like because most social networks especially Facebook, Google and Microsoft implement strong measures to combat fraudulent identities.

We also benefit because there are fewer sets of credentials to remember. As well, if a social network implements improved user-security measures like multifactor authentication or “trusted-device” operation, this flows on to the online service we use.

Some of the online services also can provide a personalised experience such as granting you birthday wishes on your birthday, including making those “special birthdays” such as the “big zeros” or the 21sts highly special.

Disadvantages

The disadvantages that can occur include weak links in the authentication protocols and a total dependence on access to and the security of a particular social-network account.

This also encompasses situations where a workplace or school may implement measures to shut out access to social networks in the name of productivity or an oppressive regime may shut out access to the popular social networks to curtail free speech. This can limit access to the online service because of its dependence on the social network.

How can it be operated properly

To assure users of their privacy, a social sign-on setup needs to identify any attributes that it is obtaining from a social network and give the user consent to obtain the attributes. As well, the login procedure should allow for one to create a login that is independent of a social network whether in conjunction with a social-network presence or not.

Similarly, the concept of social sign-on could be exploited by social networks and other authentication services to support simple-but-secure login for living-room applications. This is, from my experience, something that needs to be worked on because such devices require a lot of “pick-and-choose” data entry using a remote control’s D-pad to enter user credentials for online services. As well, many different users are likely to use the same living-room device.

Articles

Twitter, Facebook must be more diligent | Technology | BigPond News

Expert says Dawson broke the first rule of social media: don’t feed the trolls | Sydney Morning Herald

My Comments

The Charlotte Dawson saga that has been over the Australian news media over the last week has become a wake-up call regarding the nature of the Social Web and the Internet in general when it comes to the ability to leave unverified irrational comments against people or organisations.

This is where social networks, bulletin boards, forums and similar services are used as a platform to launch an attack against a person. Here, it can manifest in ways such as a caustic remark left on a Facebook profile or a forum; through a barrage of tweets or instant messages of abuse fired at a person or, at worst, a Facebook Page, YouTube video or something similar can be set up to pillory that person.

Even before the Social Web became mainstream, there was the issue of free Web hosts and the “export to HTML” function in recent word processors and affordable desktop-publishing software being used to quickly set up defamatory Web sites against people. This situation was then underscored by the use of cost-effective camera-equipped mobile phones to create distasteful videos to appear on these sites or to send across to others via email or MMS.

Some press articles raised the issue of how easier it has become to leave improper comments on the Social Web, Web-hosted forums and the like without being traced back easily. This is even though most of these services have mechanisms for the Webmaster or others in charge to control scurrilous behaviour, including a reporting mechanism for others who are aggrieved by the behaviour to let those in charge know. As well, these mechanisms are underscored by the terms and conditions that users have to assent to when they become a member of these services.

Even before the rise of the Internet, there was common advice that was offered regarding nuisance phone calls and similar behaviour involving communications services/ For example, one was advised to simply to hang up on a nuisance call and, if the activity persisted, to report the matter to the telecommunications company and the police.

This was also underscored by most countries having laws in place that proscribes the use of a “common carriage service” to harrass, menace or threaten others. The reference to the “common carriage service” is a legal term used to describe telephone, post or similar services used by everyone as a communications tool.

What can you do

What most of us have to be aware of is not to satisfy the cyber-bully’s wants by leaving responses to the caustic remarks or passing on the comments in the common space that the platform offers.

If the behaviour persists, we have to know how to “block” or “unfriend” the troublemakers in the case of social media. There is the ability to report the matter to the social-media platform’s “report this” option where it draws the behaviour to the attention of the platform’s administrators.

In the case of forums, blogs or wikis, you should contact the site owner or administrator through the contact options that exist on the site. There will usually be a “Contact Us” link somewhere on the forum, usually on the login screen.

The only situation that can be difficult is a Website that is hastily built up to pillory another person. It may be difficult to track down the owner of the domain name if the domain name isn’t an obvious hosting domain like wordpress.com associated with a particular Web host. Here, you may have to do “whois” searches oh the domain and locate the entity owning the domain. In the case of a subdomain of a hosting domain, you may have to go the the “www” site of that hosting domain to track down who is operating the site.

Aggrieved people should also be aware of local support services especially where there is a risk of depression being brought on by this activity. Some of these services focus particularly on the cyber-bullying menace and provide online or telephone-based advice.  Of course, your friends or family whom you trust can help out with these situations.

Introduction

Some of you may have dabbled in Facebook or other social networks but then find that you are “sick and tired” of operating them. Then what you end up doing is ceasing to log in to your account. Your friends or followers hear nothing from you and you don’t follow up on activity from the people who are or could be in the social network.

You may even tie your account to an email account that you subsequently cease to use like one associated with your previous ISP or employer; or a Webmail account that you have forgotten about.

These accounts end up with a “pile-up” of friend requests and other people using the social network end up thinking you’re not there. The potential friends may even be considered “spammy” by the social network as they end up with many pending friend requests.

But some of you may want to keep the account alive for such efforts as “keeping in the loop” while travelling or keeping in contact with distant family and friends.

There are some people who may think that it is an act of sacrilege to engage with Facebook, MySpace or Twitter when they have broken off from the network as a statement of their beliefs or actions. The people who I am targeting this post at are the ones who simply abandon these accounts after a fair bit of seasonal activity.

Leave an off-the-air post

When you think that you will be going “off the air” with the social network, write up a public post that says that you will be scaling back your presence on the social network. This lets everyone know that you are OK but won’t be appearing as regularly as you would have done.

Set up notifications

A good practice is to make use of the notification function that the social network has. Here, you could set up your social network’s notification function to send you a summary email post of notifications concerning your account;s activity.

In this arrangement, you should know if someone sends you a direct message, adds you as a friend or follower or confirms a friend request that you instigated. If the social network supports a suggestion framework, you could be notified if someone suggests a member or page for you to link up with on the platform.

Similarly, you can set the email notification to notify you of friends’ birthdays and if your posts or photos have been tagged or someone has tagged you in a post or photo.

When you set the email address, set it to the current email inbox that you are using on a regular basis and keep these email addresses registered with the social network up to date.

Regular “drop in” to your social network

Once a month to once every two / three months, log in and post something or leave a comment on a post or photo so people know you’re “there”.

If you have something for sale, login to Facebook or your other social networks and post a public post with a picture of the item for sale and / or a link to the eBay or “online mart” page you are using to advertising it so your Facebook Friends and others on the network can know it’s for sale.

Here, you don’t forget the login parameters for your account and know that it still exists. This can come in handy if you do want to operate you account frequently like as part of a special trip or event.

It is also worth knowing that some social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ can work as an anchor to a “single-sign-on” mechanism. Here, people can use the credentials associated with these social networks to enrol with and log in to forums, blogs and similar services. If you do have an opportunity to do so, use one of these social-networks that you are enrolled in as credentials for a forum that you are joining in.

Conclusion

Keeping regular tabs on a social network that you had participated in frequently before is a way of knowing that you still exist on it and that people don’t think you have fallen off the earth if you have deserted it.

Article

BBC News – Byte-sized revolution heralds Twitter in Scottish court

My Comments

Over the many hundreds of years, the courts of justice, especially those countries that work to British common law like the UK and Australia, have been overly cautious about the use of recording and reporting technology during the cases brought before them.

Now, a sentencing hearing held in the Scottish High Court has become the first courtroom venue to allow the use of Twitter to permit dissemination of information by observers. The Twitter-based technology would have worked well with remand and sentencing hearings in criminal cases or the conclusion of a case; where there are short exchanges. As well, these hearings, especially the remand hearings may work as a logical bookmark for a court case. On the other hand, “blog-type” reporting, where a regular bulletin is published on a Web page; at the end of each day’s proceedings, could become relevant for long-form civil and criminal cases.

One main concern that the judiciary would have about this is the protection of justice against situations like “trial by media”. It also may be of concern with criminal, family and other cases involving children or other vulnerable people and there is a desire in these cases to limit exposure of these people to pejorative media coverage.

I would suggest that the judiciary investigate the issue of the courtroom and the Internet through various means. This could include integration of questions regarding Web coverage of cases being part of specific cases across the legal fabric; trial-running of specific provisions in particular hearings or cases like what the Scottish High Court had done and even having particular cases of common interest being live-blogged by trusted reporters. As well, lawyers, judges and magistrates who have valuable knowledge or experience concerning the online courtroom should be encouraged to publish their findings as much as possible. The legislative pillar of government should also investigate this topic in case laws have to be revised concerning this practice.

As well, there could be investigation in to secure RSS feeds as a technological measure for the justice system. This is where people have to be authenticated before the can have access to this feed. This could be extended to a courthouse running a case-specific “keep-u-posted” RSS feed service searchable by case number or participant so that people who are part of or are following a case can know what is going.

Once the judiciary investigates the feasibility of the “online courtroom”, they can integrate this pillar of government in to the “e-government” agenda. As well, those who do cover a court case using live-blogging or other online techniques need to keep core principles of justice in their minds.

76% of 18 to 24-year-olds Browse the Internet While Watching TV | eHomeUpgrade

My comments

I have read the eHomeUpgrade article about how young people are surfing the Web while they are watching TV. There are various factors that I have observed that are encouraging this kind of activity and are based a lot on observation and experience.

Younger people being more likely to be tech-savvy

Ever since the 1980s, information technology has become a key part of one’s education in most school curriculums. Initially this started off with “computer studies” or something similarly-named being a secondary-school subject, but has moved towards computer use being integrated in to regular school studies over the last twenty years.

Similarly, most younger people have been known to adopt to newer technologies more easily than people of older age groups. This typically has been noticed by the “kids” being the ones who can work consumer-electronics devices beyond the basic requirements like setting the clock on a video recorder, or being “nimble-fingered” with the mobile phone’s keypad to send text messages.  

The current home-computing environments that promote this activity

One is the proliferation of laptops, notebooks, netbooks and similar portable computers available new or secondhand at prices that most could afford as well as smartphones that have integrated Web-browsing capability being available under subsidised-handset contract. All these devices are equipped with an integrated Wi-Fi wireless-network adaptor which allows for use-anywhere functionality.

They would typically be used in a Wi-Fi-based home networks which has coverage that extends to areas where a television set would be located like the lounge room. Another situation that also commonly exists would be the colocation of a TV set and a a computer in a teenager’s own bedroom or the lounge areas that teenagers or other young people primarily use like “games rooms”, “rumpus rooms” or simply the secondary lobby in a two-storey house.

These setups would encourage the use of an Internet-connected computer while watching TV shows, which I have seen a lot of at home with a teenager who was often had a laptop going while watching TV.

TV shows running Websites

As well, most TV studios are operating programme-specific Websites that are seen as a way of extending the programme’s value. This typically includes the providing of extra video material, Web downloads, forums and the like and is often used as a way to make the show appeal to the younger generation.

It is also supplemented by information pages like Internet Movie Database and epguides.com as well as fan-created “unofficial” Websites for the various TV shows and show genres. They will have such information like episode guides with season, episode an “first-screen” information as well as biographies for the characters in the show, cast and crew details.

In some cases, this is also tied in with Web-based “catch-up TV” where you can see recently-screened episodes as well as supplementary video material.

The Social Web

This leads me to the Social Web being the primary reason for surfing the Web while watching TV. Here, viewers use the show’s Web forums, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace to chat with like-minded friends and fans, and in the case of the social networks, use “official front ends” like Facebook Pages and Twitter hashtags to participate with the show. Some TV shows like, panel shows or reality-TV shows may link these feeds in to the show’s fabric by having the compere read out selected content from the Social Web or have a ticker at the bottom of the screen showing similar information. An example of this is when ABC-TV Australia was running “Q and A” on Monday nights, they had a Twitter hashtag called #qanda and all of the Tweets with this hashtag appeared as a ticker on the bottom of the screen.

Recently there have been some social-network sites centred around TV shows where one can “check in” and chat with like-minded viewers about favourite shows.

The various social networks have been made easier to use with smartphones and similar devices either through a client app written for the popular smartphone and “Web-tablet” platforms or a handheld-optimised “mobile view” of the social network’s Web view.

Conclusion

The combination of technologically-astute young people, ubiquitous portable computers, the home network and the Internet, TV-show Websites and the Social Web all reinforce the fact that TV isn’t for lounging in front of anymore.