Facebook

When they hear that I don’t have a Facebook account or a Twitter page, some people look at me as if I’ve just announced that I want no part of some fundamental convention of society.

It’s the same reaction that I would get if I told them that I don’t own a pair of underpants or a toothbrush.

They look at me like I am some sort of commando-going, halitosis-suffering maniac who must be stopped for the sake of all mankind.

Continue reading "Surrendering to social media" »

Online memorials have been getting a bad rap lately, and in many ways, rightly so. The cruel comments posted on the Facebook memorial page for murdered Brisbane 12-year-old Elliott Fletcher are nothing short of repulsive.

Even after the furore over the posting of pornographic images on Fletcher’ s site, insensitive and offensive comments persist. Amid good wishes to Elliott and his family, Matt Jackson has written on one Fletcher tribute page, “im famous, im on the world famous post hahahahaha hi mum im on tv lol.”

Scroll down. One of three “fan photos” at that page’s left shows Fletcher in life, grinning under tousled hair, with the words “Woot I’m [sic] dead” written over him in thick red marker.

Continue reading "Don’t kill off online tributes because of bad press" »

Public outrage over the shocking vandalism of internet tribute sites for two young Queenslanders who died in terrible circumstances has again raised questions over freedom online.

The worldwide web next month celebrates its 21st anniversary. It has grown from a single web page to more than a trillion unique pages and is expanding rapidly every day.

Social network sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube transformed the web from largely static pages under a website owner’s control into something more fluid, with people interacting on the websites to create content.

Continue reading "What next for Facebook after its nightmare week?" »

The Punch has just left Facebook’s headquarters in San Francisco where the company sought to address the fallout from the controversy of tribute pages to dead minors being defaced with obscene content.

Following questions earlier this week from The Punch, Facebook’s global communications and policy director, Debbie Frost, told us the company was sending a letter to Queensland Premier Anna Bligh apologising for the incident and addressing the Premier’s letter of concern sent to the social networking giant this week.

Frost said the incident was unprecedented in her time at Facebook, adding it was difficult to fathom how people would decide to attack memorial pages in this way.

Continue reading "Facebook responds: Shock at obscenities, no policy change" »

As a new recruit to Facebook, I admit I was not exactly on the first-wave of the online social networking phenomena. It’s not that I’m a techo-phobe by any measure (my blackberry is a constant companion).

It’s just that I am not entirely convinced that the addition of a Facebook page will enhance either my work or personal lives.  And the thing is, in this job, the two are often inextricably linked. MPs are public figures - albeit very minor ones. And - after sharing weekends, evenings and most waking hours with either my local constituents, my parliamentary colleagues,  Industry groups and stakeholders within my shadow portfolio responsibilities -  I’d kinda like to keep a little bit of me just for my nearest and dearest.

Call me old fashioned (and I’m sure many of you will) but I prefer to share my personal trials, triumphs and trivia with those I am closest to, rather than the-acquaintance-of-an-acquaintance who I met once at a function and who has now requested to be my “friend”.

Continue reading "Online tributes a hollow imitation of genuine grief" »

Considering the complex cloak and dagger diplomacy surrounding US-Iran relations deputy US State Department Spokesman Robert Duguid comes out with a pretty open account of how and why the State Department asked Twitter not to close down during the post-election uprising in Iran. 

“We don’t have anyone on the ground in Iran; we haven’t since our hostages were set free in 1981. So for us just knowing the information was coming out that this real information, or at least piecemeal information that you knew was happening on the day was important,” Mr Duguid told The Punch from Washington.

“It was also evident to us that without social media being available that those groups who were opposing the crackdown and opposing the election results would not have a voice. So yes we learnt that Twitter was going to go down for maintenance. So we talked about it upstairs at the public affairs section, and one of our number knew the folks at Twitter.”

Continue reading "The diplomatic tightrope in the age of Social Media" »

Update 7am: Despite the company’s statement yesterday, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy say Facebook needs to explain itself. The Punch is still awaiting a response to its questions put to Facebook’s press office.

Update 4.45pm Wednesday: Today there are at least two groups live on Facebook - one of which has over 3400 members - calling for the death of the man accused of Trinity Bates’s murder. If this happened in a newspaper or on a major news website the editor would be at risk of going to jail.

Update Wednesday 2.45pm : Facebook has published a statement about obscene content on the tribute pages to Elliott Fletcher and Trinity Bates on its website. It is printed in full below. We’re yet to hear from them.

Facebook’s statement:

Continue reading "Obscenity on tribute walls: Five questions to Facebook" »

IF you’ve been following the tech media this week, you’ll know that Google is in hot water over one of the most serious privacy breaches in its history.

You’ll likely have heard that Google launched a new product, called Google Buzz,  that was meant to create a social network out of its email users.

And that major privacy flaws in the product led to abusive men getting access to the details of their ex wives, political activists finding their contacts made public for investigators to peruse and journalists having their sources “outed”. I’m one of those journalists.

Continue reading "How Google managed to reveal my sources" »

Another week, another internet service that needs joining to see what the hype’s about. The web was supposed to make life easier, but all it seems to be doing lately is inventing more ways to bombard people with babble.

Google Buzz‘s launch last week was wrapped in an increasingly familiar aura. As with the iPad launch, there was huge excitement from some nerdy types but a resounding verdict from much of the public has been a sigh and a shrug.

Instead of capitalising on excitement, new products have to overcome fatigue. There’s the effort setting up yet another profile, then somehow remembering to check back on it in between reading the news, monitoring tweets, Facebook status updates, doing the footy tipping, watching that Hitler video everyone’s talking about and getting to your reading recommendations all while trying to manage your phone and email inbox.

Continue reading "I’m sorry but the internet is starting to suck" »

It’s Thursday @ The Punch

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg today in 2004.

There have been a few additions to the site you might like to know about.

Want to take up a reader’s point directly with them? You can now reply directly to them by clicking the “Reply” icon at the foot of each comment.

The Punch also now has a Facebook page, where there’ll be occasional updates during the day. Just log in to Facebook, browse to the Punch Facebook page, and hit the “Become a fan” button. You might even get to know other fans of the site through it.

Continue reading "New features on The Punch" »

Perhaps the elite all-male college at Sydney University, St Paul’s, needs to get some rugby league players to talk to its members about respecting women.

The ranks of the elite who would decry league players as “boofheads” and would have been most vocally repulsed by the exposure of player attitudes to the opposite sex have been revealed as nurturing a virtually identical culture of the sexual objectification of women.

Rugby league teams aren’t known for being overrun with players who are also top-flight academics but they could probably teach the boys at St Paul’s a thing or two. The students are supposed to be high achievers but for outright misogyny it’s pretty hard to beat setting up a Facebook group that basically endorses rape.

Continue reading "League players might teach rich boys a thing or two" »

What’s your barometer for keeping things in perspective?

For the past four months or so for me, it’s been Facebook.

Not because of the constant status updates (from the witty to the mundane) or the pictures of new babies, houses, holidays or parties. 

Continue reading "A very modern way to say goodbye forever" »

I still remember exactly where I was when I found out both my parents had passed away. I remember every smell, every colour and I remember exactly what I was thinking as if it was just yesterday.

It’s a horrible thing learning someone you love has died, and I still am completely in awe of those who passed on the news, and provided the support and care I needed at the time.

Today news broke of a Western Australian family who yesterday learned their daughter had died in a car crash via a Facebook post.

Continue reading "Facebook is not the place to find out your child is dead" »

This simple graphic illustrates one way the internet can be used to get an insight into a person, by analysing publicly available information associated with a name. I’ve chosen, for no particular reason, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull. Through the rest of this post are similar profiles of a range of Australian public identities.

You can enter your own details into the Personas tool here. If you feel uncomfortable watching the process of this tool scouring the web for information about you, that’s the idea. It was designed to show you have a publicly available profile which you cannot control.

Developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it’s intended to highlight not just how you are seen on the web, but “for the viewer to reflect on our current and future world, where digital histories are as important if not more important than oral histories.”

Continue reading "What does the web think of you?" »

It was shortly before my wedding. As I assume others do, I spent some time examining my life. Amidst the consideration of my health, my career and my relationship came a question.

What are you doing on Facebook?

There must be people who find Facebook fulfilling, just as there are people who enjoy discussing Kanye West’s latest rant or actually believe the man has a talent for making anything other than a tit of himself. I just happen not to be one of them.

Continue reading "I killed myself on Facebook, and lived to tell the tale" »

Earlier this month I spoke at a social media conference in Melbourne. When you wear a badge that says you work for Rupert Murdoch at these events, it’s like sitting in the middle of the Collingwood cheer squad in a Carlton jumper. With some people the best you can hope for is that their initial horror will eventually subside to a mild hostility.

I was there to speak about strategy for social media, including Twitter, which The Punch has engaged to a fair degree of success. It is second only to the mighty Google in terms of the number of readers it helps the site reach. My presentation was on using social networks to connect with people.

The Social Media Summit 2009 came just days after the announcement that News Corporation planned to charge for access to its websites. It was the hottest topic of conversation in the wings and with the exception of one or two people, the view among the delegates was that it wasn’t going to work.

Continue reading "Psst, Twitter: You might want to help save big media" »

My family is under strict instructions that if I’m ever kidnapped by Guatemalan rebels (it could happen), am the first victim in a global pandemic that started with domestic animals or become in anyway incapacitated in a newsworthy way they’re to distribute three flattering photographs of me to any media outlet that wants them as soon as the news breaks.

Its a long standing fact that if you die overseas of something other than natural causes, are part of a public tragedy, or just can’t speak for yourself after something really weird happens, newspapers, websites and TV stations are going to scramble for any picture of you they can get your hands on.

If all that’s on offer is some Facebook pics of you throwing up in a garbage bin at Schoolies Week - well so be it. Five years ago the chances of a picture like this one of Jason Scorer, who died in Rome after falling into the Tiber this week, ever seeing the light of day in the mainstream media were minimal.

Continue reading "Your last photo: how do you want to be remembered?" »

I am a social media whore. That’s the point of it all right? There’s a lot you can know about me from what music I listen to, what concerts I’ve been to and yes, even occasionally what I just ate.

There’s even a 12 second video somewhere of me dancing in a tutu to What a Feeling by Irene Cara.  All of which I chose to share across a number of social networks I belong to that include Blip.fm, Twitter and 12seconds.tv and I’m comfortable with that.

And then there’s Facebook.

Continue reading "Six million Australians are selling their lives to Facebook" »

I’m addicted to Facebook. It’s not uncommon for me tie a piece of elastic around my arm and shoot up a dose of the online social network eleven or twelves times a day.

Even when I’m not actively stalking someone or randomly updating my status, Facebook is constantly idle in the background, ready for someone to start up a Facebook Chat conversation.

There are now 6.7 million Australians on Facebook, although you’ll have to take my word on that. I’m just a blogger and not a real journalist so I didn’t do any research on that statistic, I just asked Twitter.

Continue reading "What if you had a birthday and nobody poked you" »

The internet is probably the best beach in the world to go for a surf. It’s the reason I spend more than ten hours a day on the computer, at least eleven if you include my iPhone.

It’s not just the great weather, the rad waves and the cool surfers you meet, in fact there are too many reasons why the internet is awesome to talk about here.

But one of the more interesting ones that’s emerged lately is the concept of collaboration. And not just any collaboration, because that’s been around for ages. But this idea of people who have very little in common, have no prior knowledge of each other and in some case even remaining anonymous, coming together and working together.

Continue reading "Make friends, investigate murders on the internet" »

The Daily Show team digs out the best clips from the archive for this stuff. Here’s Stewart on unverified social media info driving coverage of the Iran elections.