Number 10 hands out Twitter exclusives to favoured journalists

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A discussion topic in episode 701 of the FIR podcast, published today, looks at a question asked in the Metro newspaper last week: should British politicians take notes from Barack Obama’s campaign team? The Metro’s excellent report looked at the key role social media played  – especially Twitter – in both of the US president’s [...]

When robots rule the world

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The idea that computers rather than people could make decisions about other people’s intentions in the workplace that I wrote about recently – an IBM security tool can flag “disgruntled employees” – may be the tip of an evolutionary iceberg that spotlights a wider and deeper issue facing developed countries like the US and many [...]

Shape the debate about the UK and the EU

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A few days ago, Prime Minister David Cameron made a speech in London on what he called “the future of Europe,” setting out his stall about the UK, the European Union, Europe itself and how he sees the future for these entities. I watched his live delivery on the TV news. I liked much of [...]

Gun control: where there’s a will there must be a way

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In the aftermath of the terrible tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, USA, on December 14 that saw 20 kids aged six and seven shot to death along with six adults, much talk has focused on re-opening the American debate on gun control. An image I’ve seen posted by many people on social networking sites like Facebook [...]

Curating Leveson

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I’m experimenting with getting to know Spundge, a content curation and publishing platform (which Craig Silverman talks about at length in the latest FIR Interview podcast I posted yesterday). Spundge is a lot about finding and filtering relevant content that matches topics you’re interested in. You do this through creating a Spundge Notebook, a sort [...]

How social media supports Israel’s military and political goals

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The current conflict between Israel and the Hamas government in Gaza includes a contemporary element that shouldn’t really surprise anyone – the use of social media in support of Israel’s military and political objectives. 21st-century tools for propaganda purposes, some might say. Effective tools and channels to engage online with influencers and opinion-leaders wherever they [...]

UK crisis of trust: BBC is just the tip of the iceberg

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A news item in today’s Telegraph says that a survey by Kantar shows that 79 percent of the British public don’t trust senior BBC managers to tell the truth. This, of course, relates to the serious and still-unfolding crises confronting the broadcaster as investigations into allegations of child sex abuse over past decades vie for [...]

The Twitter channel for government announcements

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This morning, the British government announced the appointment of the next Archbishop of Canterbury. I’ve linked to the announcement, above. It will bring you the tweet you see in the screenshot. Yes, a tweet is the government announcement. According to the BBC report on the appointment: [...] Prime Minister David Cameron made the announcement via [...]

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