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Twitter Tag

Researchers studying China's equivalent of Twitter have found that anger tends to be the most influential emotion on the social network.  It spreads the fastest and most broadly, more than several other categories of emotion.  The findings could offer insight into studying how information spreads...

With a news cylce measured in seconds and minutes, not even hours, there are plenty of mainstream media mistakes, as I wrote yesterday, One lesson for mass killings: Don’t trust media reports for at least 24 hours. Piers Morgan, for example, ran wild over the fact that the shooter used an AR-15, except it turned out the shooter didn't. So Morgan deleted some of his inaccurate and embarrassing tweets about the use of an AR-15 in the Navy Yard shooting.  In so doing, Morgan both deleted inaccurate information and his own political embarrassment. That makes it harder for people (like me) to address Morgan's politics on gun control -- evidence has been removed from the internet. Well, fortunately, Twitchy grabbed the screen shots before Morgan's deletion: Twitchy Morgan AR-15 deleted tweets But in many cases, someone's Twitter or blog history is important in itself. With a blog entry, one can update and correct, as Buzzfeed did yesterday, and Google Cache often (but not always) saves the original.  But with Twitter, there is no ability to change the tweet itself, only to issue a new tweet correcting the prior (Morgan has not done that, btw), and it is much harder to reconstruct deleted tweets. The same issue exists as to the NY Daily News' now infamous Cover which was sent out on Twitter, and resulted in this conversation: https://twitter.com/brithume/status/380086436835241984 https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/380312186456793088

If you've ever tried to use Twitter search to find someone's old tweet, you've likely been disappointed to find that the results leave you digging through only the most recent tweets, and that's if they even match your search terms at all. I've mentioned previously in...

Edward Snowden and the NSA debate seem to have lost some significant momentum on Twitter in light of the current discussion about what the US will or won't be doing about the situation in Syria. Business Insider noticed that Syria Tensions Have Knocked The NSA Spying...

Remember when Joan Walsh of non-tokenist Salon.com kicked off an intra-progressive Twitter war after writing:
“I deeply resent people who insist that white progressives who criticize Obama are deluding themselves that they’re his ‘base,’ when his ‘base’ is actually not white progressives, but people of color.”
Sure you do, Dem Base Fractures Into Twitter War And Charges Of Racism Against Professional Left: https://twitter.com/joanwalsh/status/55783212164718592 http://twitter.com/joanwalsh/status/55841811423436800 http://twitter.com/joanwalsh/status/55795875955478528 Nothing brings out the popcorn faster at LI than intra-progressive racial grievances. And this past week possibly was the largest bucket of popcorn ever seen upon the face of the Earth, with the hashtag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen.   vid-spacer The guy they're talking about, Hugo Schwyzer, also is known as the Pasadena Porn Professor, who we have covered at College Insurrection, and you can read more about at The Other McCain. (By this point you're thinking, this is the weirdest Saturday Night Card Game post ever.) However it started, as convoluted as it was, the result was pure hysteria (via Al Jazeera)(click on the date of each tweet to see responses to it, some of which were more "interesting" than the tweet itself):

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...

I wish I had put this list together myself. But the credit goes to John Nolte of Breitbart.com on Twitter. [View the story "Top Ten Things Media Found More Important Than al Qaeda" on Storify]...

Over the weekend, we covered the news of Tony Wang, the general manager of Twitter UK, apologizing to women who have experienced abuse on its site, after a female UK lawmaker and several journalists received threats of violence. In the face of very public backlash over...

I'm glad the Muslim Brotherhood is out of power in Egypt. From the inception of the 2011 protests against Hosni Mubarak, we warned that western media, particularly the NY Times and its writer Roger Cohen, misunderstood the threat of Islamist supremacy in the revolution. We were right, although the ability of the opposition to coalesce over a year later was a surprise, as was the military's willingness to get involved. It was the economy, stupid, and the MB's overreaching. That said, you can't ignore the fact that Mohamed Morsi was the duly elected President of Egypt. Call it a coup d'état or whatever you want, at least admit what just happened even if you like the result. Around the time Morsi was removed yesterday, I sent out a tweet listing respective percentage wins of Morsi and Obama in the 2012 elections which placed each of them in their presidencies. https://twitter.com/LegInsurrection/status/352522811920756737 The reactions are below, but first, a quick poll, Was that an anti-Obama Tweet? (Poll closes midnight Pacific time tonight) There were some humorous reactions: https://twitter.com/BrettLoGiurato/status/352523874384089088 https://twitter.com/trentmwhite/status/352523298816540672

I don't know that @jeanassy says in these tweets, but it must have been really "good." Lebanese blogger questioned police tweets Assy, who describes himself as a web developer, allegedly is a supporter of the Free Patriotic Movement of Michael Aoun, which is part of the governing coalition along with Hezbollah and other parties. Via the Lebanese website Naharnet:
A Lebanese blogger has been questioned by the Internal Security Forces for his insulting tweets and not as reported for criticizing President Michel Suleiman. A careful examination of Jean Assy's twitter account reveals swearing and name-calling against Suleiman which go beyond society's morals and ethics. Defamation is a crime according to Lebanon’s penal code. The image grab of his twitter account published above and which shows his immoral tweets, is aimed at putting an end to the political reactions made by some parties under the excuse of defending freedom of expression. In reality his tweets are morally degrading and do not fall under the framework of freedoms. Politicians and not only the judiciary have a duty to preserve the post of the president out of respect for social values. Assy was on Tuesday briefly seized by the ISF's Office to Combat Cyber Crimes to question him on the series of tweets he has made. No charges were brought against him. “Some people are attacking me for the "insults" I wrote, while I'm pretty sure they say things even worse about the president and others offline,” he has said in one tweet.
Al-Akhbar English further reports:
Jean Assy said he was summoned to the cyber crimes office in Beirut and questioned over Tweets calling the head of state an “akrout,” which roughly translates to “hooligan” or “delinquent.” “I was called in for an investigation. I didn’t know it was about bashing the president. So I came today and was shocked to learn that it was about tweets I made a few months ago,” he told Al-Akhbar shortly after his release. According to him the investigation lasted for about an hour, but he was then held for another 4-5 hours before meeting with a judge. The judge asked him to sign a document vowing not to criticize the presidency, and then released him without charge.
Here's an interview with Assy, if anyone can translate, that would be great: Here are Assy's explanations in English on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeanassy/status/347005962026090496

I know you hate it when I mention Meghan McCain. I hate it too, it brings back memories of her bizarre and false claim that I made fun of her breast size. I didn't even write the post at issue, Kathleen did, and the post did...

The group of pro-Assad hackers calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army hacked The Guardian news outlet over the weekend, marking the latest in a string of cyberattacks from the same organization.  The incident emphasizes the potential threat such attacks could pose if executed for goals far more malicious than intimidation or mere gain of public attention.  And news outlets are among the most useful targets to such groups. The attack on The Guardian was in apparent retaliation for the outlet’s coverage on the conflict in Syria.  Last year, The Guardian also published a cache of emails between Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his inner circle, in articles that were, not surprisingly, not very flattering of Assad. On April 15th, the same organization hacked NPR and several of its Twitter accounts, also over the outlet's coverage of Syria.  Only days later, the Syrian Electronic Army hacked several of CBS’ Twitter accounts and sent out pro-Syrian propaganda, including false claims that the CIA is arming Al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria. The same week, the group also compromised Twitter accounts of the Associated Press to tweet out a false message, causing the Dow to temporarily plummet.
The false tweet said there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Barack Obama was injured. The attack on AP's Twitter account and the AP Mobile Twitter account was preceded by phishing attempts on AP's corporate network. […] The false tweet went out shortly after 1 p.m. and briefly sent the Dow Jones industrial average sharply lower. The Dow fell 143 points, from 14,697 to 14,554, after the fake Twitter posting, and then quickly recovered.
And in March, several of BBC’s Twitter accounts were also hacked by the same group.  They tweeted out snarky messages such as, “Saudi weather station down due to head-on collision with camel.” But these attacks from the Syrian Electronic Army aren’t limited to recent weeks.

Some random tweets I bookmarked this past week. In no particular order. The One who got away: My artist rendering of what the dude would look like without the backward baseball cap. twitter.com/ExJon/status/3…— Jon Gabriel (@ExJon) April 18, 2013 You've lost Mother Jones ...

There was a lot of Twitter activity trying to drive the mainstream media to cover the trial of Kermit Gosnell. The Washington Post and NY Times, among others, now will be sending reporters to the trial, although denying that any pro-abortion bias caused them to shy...

I have been encouraging readers to get on Twitter. #Victory Just a few thousand more to go. @leginsurrectionYou begged for me to get on twitter so here I am. My first tweet.— Catherine E. Harrop (@Catherine_in_Va) April 13, 2013 And she sent yesterday's Broadcast Tweet! #IcingOnCake Break #Gosnell news blackout...

The mainstream media is ignoring Kermit Gosnell's abortion shop of horrors. In addition to the near total blackout at newspapers like The NY Times and Washington Post and all major networks except Fox News, mainstream news sites like Politico are silent, with not a single story...