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Posted by Leslie Eastman on June 28, 2015 19 Comments
Mark Twain once wrote that "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." In the age of the internet, that saying should be updated to "three times around the world", as is evidenced by the story behind the resignation of a British scientist. I recently reported that Dr. Tim Hunt, a Nobel-prizing winning physiologist, a British knight, and a leading advocate for science education that is usually promoted by women’s rights activists, made a lame joke about single-sex labs. His punishment in the wake of a vicious social justice campaign was his forced resignation from the University College London. New revelations about the speech and the context of the joke have surfaced. An account of a European Commission Official who took detailed minutes of the event adds key information absent from the original report:
According to the new account, Sir Tim started with: “It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists,” which makes clear he mocking sexism, rather than indulging in it. St. Louis reported this as Hunt simply admitting: “he has a reputation as a male chauvinist.”

Posted by Amy Miller on April 22, 2015 27 Comments
I learned a lot during my time on the 2014 campaign trail. I learned how to "cut a walk book" for a block walk, and organize a phone bank, and juggle 15 reporters, 25 volunteers, and one candidate with one hand tied behind my back; but most importantly, I learned how to create a digital campaign that talks to people, as opposed to talking at them. People hate being talked at. It's condescending and boring and there's no hope of making a connection. You're wasting your time, money, and most importantly, your face time with a potential voter. That's why I was surprised and excited to see one of our already-declared presidential candidates taking a new approach to voter outreach. Yesterday, Team Rubio posted a different kind of video to their Facebook page. Watch it:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 07, 2015 4 Comments
Members of both political parties descended upon Selma, Alabama earlier today. Partisan politics were shelved as members of Congress were unified in remembering the sacrifice of those who marched for freedom. So how did Republicans commemorate the day? Take a look:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 16, 2015 8 Comments
Chicago's Mayor can't be bothered with first person pronouns. At least not when it comes to his Twitter account. Not all politicians have social media pros running their accounts for them. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn runs his own Twitter account. And former Texas Governor, Rick Perry, also personally tweets from his account. And who can forget Senator Grassley's infamous tweets? Like most elected officials, Emanuel probably has someone running his account for him. But for some unknown, yet hilarious reason, whomever is managing the good Mayor's account has opted to go third person. Chris Ziegler from The Verge pointed out:
I'm especially amused by the Twitter feed of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, for some reason. Maybe it's the frequency of third-person tweets; maybe it's the fact that he usually refers to himself simply as "Rahm," not something more formal like "Mayor Emanuel." It's just Rahm talkin' about Rahm. Rahm on Rahm.
Rahm, Rahm, and more Rahm:

Posted by Amy Miller on January 27, 2015 3 Comments
Iranian media outlet Press TV made a major error yesterday when they mistook an Israeli satire article for actual news. I realize that most of us have been fooled at some point by a link on Facebook or Twitter making some sort of ridiculous claim, but Press TV reached a whole new level of gullible with this one: they actually believed that President Obama used social media to diss Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. By unfriending him. On Facebook. Via Israelly Cool:
The report was based on this satirical piece by The Israeli Daily, which they even cite!
The icy relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu hit a new low this week, with the American president ‘defriending’ the Israeli Premier on Facebook. Though it’s unclear exactly when Obama made the move to delete his Israeli counterpart as a Facebook friend – most likely around the time Netanyahu accepted Boehner’s controversial invite – Netanyahu only learned of the snub yesterday, according to a source close to the prime minister. “Bibi was looking at [Attorney General] Eric Holder’s page, and he happened to check what friends they had in common,” the source explained. “And he sees [Secretary of State John] Kerry, Bill [Clinton], Hill [ary Clinton], Fabio, but no Obama. So he goes to Obama’s page, and sure enough it says ‘Add Friend.’ We were in complete disbelief.” While the White House had no official comment, a source close to the President said Obama had reached his maximum allowed Friends and wished to add Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif after a pleasant meeting on Iran’s nuclear program. The source said the defriending wasn’t personal, but conceded Obama had gotten sick of seeing Sara Netanyahu on his newsfeed and the Prime Minister’s daily invitations to play Candy Crush.
How they could treat that seriously is anyone’s guess. Now if only Obama treated their nuclear ambitions this seriously.
The outlet finally removed the article and associated social media postings, but fortunately for you and me, Google cache is forever: Press TV Obama Unfriends Netanyahu FB post

Posted by Amy Miller on December 04, 2014 16 Comments
The photograph featured above surfaced shortly after a grand jury in Missouri refused to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown. In a sea of memes, photoshops, and Twitter commentary, the picture went viral alongside its companion photograph (courtesy of Politifact): politifact-photos-Ferguson_sign_original Two different photographs, one very clearly photoshopped to provide some social commentary on a quickly spiraling situation. Predictably, the photograph enraged some, delighted others, but no one with two brain cells to rub together believed that the "rob a store" version of the photograph was real. Politifact, however, dove in headfirst to provide us with an analysis no one asked for (emphasis mine):

Posted by Amy Miller on October 19, 2014 19 Comments
When it comes to quantifiably productive debate about politics, Twitter is the abyss. Those who choose to wade into its murky depths accept the fact that they're jumping into the deep end with the hackers, the trolls, and the most enthusiastic dregs of internet society. The government recognizes this, and they're here to help. A new project out of Indiana University, dubbed "Truthy," is fully funded by the federal government and seeks to harvest and analyze your Twitter data. The project's developers claim that they've developed a system that "evaluates thousands of tweets an hour to identify new and emerging bursts of activity around memes of various flavors." Here comes the science, courtesy of Indiana University's Truthy homepage:
We also plan to use Truthy to detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution. While the vast majority of memes arise in a perfectly organic manner, driven by the complex mechanisms of life on the Web, some are engineered by the shady machinery of high-profile congressional campaigns. Truthy uses a sophisticated combination of text and data mining, social network analysis, and complex networks models. To train our algorithms, we leverage crowdsourcing: we rely on users like you to flag injections of forged grass-roots activity. Therefore, click on the Truthy button when you see a suspicious meme!
Here's a flow chart, which contains even more science: Truthy Architecture

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 06, 2014 0 Comments
I guess it is not really surprising that Israel is doing well in Chinese social media. Israel and China have signed a series of new trade agreements in recent months, including academic cooperation, as we detailed in Israel-China tech deal another blow to BDS. Those expanding trade connections, based in large part on Chinese desire for Israeli technology and know-how, have continued uninterrupted during the Gaza hostilities:
China is now Israel's second- largest trading partner, with exports of US$2.88 billion and imports of US$7.99 billion last year. Chinese companies are eyeing several high-profile investment deals in Israel. These include tendering for construction of a railway linking Eilat on the Red Sea and Ashdod on the Mediterranean, and purchasing a more than US$1 billion controlling stake in Tnuva, Israel's dairy giant.
Peter Cai at the China Spectator writes on September 2, How Israel is winning the social media war in China:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 01, 2014 17 Comments
A few days ago, President Obama made what is probably one of his silliest remarks yet when he insinuated we're only now realizing the world is a "messy" place because of the advent of social media. Really? No one noticed the underbelly of humanity before Twitter? We beg to differ.

That time that jerk Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton.

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Archduke Ferdinand gets capped and a little thing called "World War I" happens

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Posted by Bryan Jacoutot on March 03, 2014 3 Comments
You may have heard about the upcoming Supreme Court case of Sebellius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
On November 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., a case arising out of commitment of the Green family, the sole owners of Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., to live out their deeply held religious convictions by “operating their company in a manner consistent with biblical principles.” These principles were put to the test when the federal government mandated that the Greens and their family businesses provide four specific potentially life-terminating drugs and devices through their employee health plan in conflict with their deeply held religious convictions. While the Green family has no moral objection to providing 16 of the 20 FDA-approved drugs and devices that are part of the federal mandate, providing drugs or devices that have the potential to terminate a life conflicts with their faith. Accordingly, the Greens and their family businesses filed suit in September 2012 to defend their right to religious freedom under the Constitution and federal law. Throughout, the Greens have been assisted and represented in the legal case by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit, public-interest legal and educational institute with a mission to protect the free expression of all faiths.
The case is scheduled to be decided by the Supreme Court by the end of the June term. Apart from the legal work being done on Hobby Lobby’s behalf, the company has also engaged in a fairly strong public relations campaign. They’ve created a number a videos, featured on YouTube and their website, including this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4pL32qQ_3k Hobby Lobby also appears to be engaging in a very active Twitter campaign to help control the narrative — to the extent possible — about their impending case.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 10, 2013 23 Comments

We've all heard of the problems faced on Twitter with the #TwitterGulag resulting from false claims of harassment and/or spam. It's also a problem on Facebook, as detailed by Ruthie Blum (sister of John Podhoretz) at The New York Observer. Blum speaks of the problem faced by pro-Israel writers on Facebook...

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