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Social Media Tag

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on March 17, 2016 5 Comments
As the nation watches the FBI battle Apple in court over access to a terrorist's iPhone data, a conflict with another Silicon Valley company simmers in the background. With over a billion users, the Facebook-owned mobile app WhatsApp is one of the world's largest messaging platforms and allows users to send text messages and make phone calls abroad without incurring the international data costs associated with traditional text and voice communication. Similar to Telegram, an app popular with ISIS members, WhatsApp offers end-to-end encrypted text messaging and, according to the Guardian, will in the coming weeks be offering encrypted voice and group messaging. At present, the Department of Justice is unsure how to proceed in an ongoing criminal investigation in which a federal judge ordered a wiretap, as the department is unable to get access the ordered data thanks to WhatsApp's encryption.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 22, 2016 47 Comments
I'm so old I remember when conservative blogs and websites used to communicate with each other on email lists and by frequent linking to each other. When Legal Insurrection started in October 2008, that was how we let the world know we existed and what we were writing. So-called "blog whoring," whereby smaller blogs clogged the inboxes of people at larger websites hoping for a link, was how it was done. This website would not have thrived without the appreciated links from Instapundit, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, and dozens of other blogs. Our Twitter page says we joined in December 2008, but I think it was another year or so before Twitter became a central communication focus for conservatives. In those "early" days I remember conservatives dominating Twitter -- the common wisdom was that liberals ruled on Facebook and conservatives ruled on Twitter. That has changed over time, and liberals are just as if not more influential on Twitter.

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on January 28, 2016 8 Comments
With the recent wave of terrorism unleashed on Israeli civilians, Prime Minister Netanyahu's government is investing in technology to pre-empt “lone wolf” attacks. Since September 2015, more than 100 stabbings attacks have taken place and 29 Israelis have died, including an American teenager. The terror attacks in Israel are not limited to knife attacks alone, about 40 shootings and 20 car ramming incidents have also taken place during the same period. Hamas and PLO-affiliated terrorist group are increasingly using Facebook and other social media platforms to recruit and direct attacks against unsuspecting Israeli civilians. And Israel is doing what Israel does best -- using cutting-edge technology to fight back terrorism. Speaking at a Cyber Technology conference in Tel Aviv, Israel's Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said that the country is studying the modus operandi of these “lone wolf” terrorists, and devising tools to monitor social media and pre-empt such attacks. Jerusalem Post reports:
Israel will invest more in technology enabling it to gather intelligence on social media about potential “lone wolf” terrorists, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said on Wednesday.  (…)

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on January 22, 2016 21 Comments
Twitter Inc. is facing a civil suit brought by the widow of an American defense contractor that was  killed by actors of the Islamic State in Jordan. Tamara Fields, wife of Lloyd "Carl" Fields, 46, alleges that Twitter knowingly allowed the Islamic State (ISIS) to use the social network to spread its propaganda and expand its membership. The civil complaint filed last week alleges Twitter enabled ISIS to carry out acts of international terrorism such as the attack that left Fields' husband dead in Jordan. A resident of Cape Coral, Florida, Carl Fields and one other American were shot by a Jordanian police captain on November 9, 2015 in an ISIS-inspired attack. "Without Twitter,  the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most-feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible."

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 11, 2016 6 Comments
Monday morning, the White House announced they'd added another social media platform to their repertoire -- Snapchat. Beginning as an app that allowed users to privately share photo messages with friends, messages that would vanish after viewing (it's biggest selling point early on), Snapchat quickly evolved to include video messaging, a chat feature, and most recently, Story Explorer. Story Explorer allows users to take videos or photos and add them to their "Story"; essentially, the apps version of a public profile. Unique to Snapchat, Story Explorer has become more than a personalized user perspective and is now used by media outlets, brands of various kinds, and as of today -- the White House. The White House explained:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 06, 2016 13 Comments
Is Facebook more tolerant of anti-Israel incitement than it is of anti-Palestinian incitement? That's something Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Center, sought to test. Shurat HaDin is a private Israeli law group that describes itself as follows:
Shurat HaDin is at the forefront of fighting terrorism and safeguarding Jewish rights worldwide. We are dedicated to the protection of the State of Israel. From defending against lawfare suits fighting academic and economic boycotts and challenging those who seek to delegitimize the Jewish State, Shurat HaDin is utilizing court systems around the world to go on the legal offensive against Israel’s enemies.
In 2014, The Tower Magazine profiled Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the founder and chief executive of Shurat HaDin, The Woman Who Makes the Jihadis Squirm.

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 02, 2016 12 Comments
Everyone knows Donald Trump is very active on Twitter but now it's official. Out of everyone running for president, Trump pretty much killed it on social media. Hadas Gold reported at Politico:
Trump dominated rivals on social media in 2015 In 2015, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump dominated his rivals on social media, causing news cycles to pivot on the click of a Tweet button — or even a Retweet button. That’s the consensus of nearly every social-media analytics firm and expert. What it may mean as the campaign unfolds into 2016 is less of a unanimous vote. One reason Trump seemed to run the board on social media: Unlike other candidates, whose feeds were carefully curated and run by staff, Trump tweeted, Facebooked and Instagrammed directly to followers, often seemingly off the top of his head.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 01, 2016 8 Comments
Back in April, the Ted Cruz campaign had a fundraiser in which one could win an afternoon "shooting with Ted," so on the one hand, it's not surprising that when a "Netflix and chill" fundraiser went out people believed it. In other ways, however, because of the meaning of that phrase; it is surprising . . . simply because the Cruz campaign has been pretty savvy thus far about not making such cultural and social media faux pas. https://twitter.com/A_Garcia1990/status/681595388718133248/photo/1 And they didn't this time--the entire thing turned out to be a Photoshopped hoax.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 18, 2015 4 Comments
Earlier this week we reported that the body of Tashfeen Malik, the female San Bernardino terrorist who slaughtered 14 of her husband's co-workers, was still unclaimed. As I predicted, Malik was buried without fanfare in an Islamic cemetery alongside her murderous spouse:
Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who opened fire on a San Bernardino holiday party earlier this month, were buried Tuesday in a quiet, graveside funeral. Many of those who attended mosque with the couple refused to attend, two mosque members said. ...The funeral followed traditional Islamic rituals, said an attendee. At a Muslim cemetery hours away from San Bernardino, the bodies were cleansed according to Islamic rules, wrapped in white cloth and buried.
Those attending the funeral at a graveyard some distance from San Bernardino are keeping the location of the burials under wraps, fearing the graves would be desecrated.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 16, 2015 58 Comments
For all the good the joy, one-click shopping, and cat videos the Internet provides, its underbelly is racked with loons of all shapes and sizes. Among them are the 9/11 truthers. Fed up by the "jet fuel can't melt steel" mantra, metalworker Trenton Tye of Purgatory Ironworks finally had enough. So he took to YouTube. "For the undying 9/11 MORONIC JET FUEL ARGUMENT" is a beautiful thing to behold.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 14, 2015 18 Comments
Daesh (ISIS) is waging digital war and the Department of Homeland Security refuses to look at an applicant's digital footprint. That seems smart. But that's not even the worst part. DHS kept the no social media policy in place for fear of "bad public relations." Terrorist attacks on the homeland? Meh. We can't peruse a Mrs. San Bernardino Terrorist's Twitter feed because that might look bad! tumblr_mbx25zhydh1qkk6oystupidistthingeverheard_zps95af7487

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 05, 2015 14 Comments
One chocolate enthusiast is waking up from her sugar coma to discover she is the country's latest social media villain. This Halloween, a San Diego resident and his friends set-up an experiment involving candy and a hidden camera.
On Halloween night, Nathan Brown and his roommates made an impromptu "social experiment" at their house in Serra Mesa.  They set up a table with three boxes of full-size candy bars for trick-or-treaters to come and take. They also wrote a note to the trick-or-treaters, "Help yourself, but please be considerate." "We thought we`ll leave some candy out...of course people are going to help themselves to a lot, but it'll be fun to see who takes what," Brown said. Brown and his roommates left home for about an hour.  They returned to empty boxes. So, they checked the security video to see which kids took the most.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 23, 2015 19 Comments
Suppose you were privy to a time machine. Knowing what you know now, would you back to 1889 and kill baby Hitler? That's the question the New York Times Magazine asked readers Friday. The internet responded exactly as you would expect.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on October 09, 2015 13 Comments
Hillary Clinton's campaign is encouraging those digitally inclined to join their digital grassroots army. The process is pretty simple. The first step to joining the astroturf grassroots gang, entering your email address and zip code: Tweet for hillary clinton campaign grassroots digital media sign up scandal email benghazi 2016 democrat Almost instantly, you'll receive an email promising you all kinds of "goodies." We're not entirely sure what "goodies" we might get and we're afraid to ask.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 25, 2015 12 Comments
Twitter has effectively shut down a popular and controversial Twitter-scraping service that allowed activists and journalists alike to keep tabs on their favorite (or not so) politicians' and diplomats' online activities. Politwoops and Diplotwoops existed as a way to archive deleted tweets from politicians and diplomats. Twitter cut off their API access (in a nutshell, API access is what allows developers to create programs integrable with services like Twitter) after ruling that preserving and posting deleted tweets violated the site's terms of service. The OpenState Foundation immediately retaliated, claiming that the move constitutes a blow to transparency:
Arjan El Fassed (director of Open State Foundation): ‘What elected politicians publicly say is a matter of public record. Even when tweets are deleted, it’s part of parliamentary history. These tweets were once posted and later deleted. What politicians say in public should be available to anyone. This is not about typos but it is a unique insight on how messages from elected politicians can change without notice.’
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