Egypt Protests Prove Malcolm Gladwell Wrong, Wrong, Wrong – 01/26/2011

Newsnight’s David Grossman reports on whether social media tools such as Twitter are fuelling the Tunisian protests, or whether the concept of a Twitter revolution has become the lazy and dangerous cliché of Western media.

by Matthew L. Schafer Note: This article originally appeared on the media website LWR. WikiLeaks’…

Yesterday, we looked at how to get and keep followers on Twitter. The whole point of getting followers is to share information with them. Or as some people

As China ratcheted up the pressure on Google to censor its Internet searches last year, the American Embassy sent a secret cable to Washington detailing one reason top Chinese leaders had become so obsessed with the Internet search company: they were Googling themselves.

Here’s another cool experiment in crowdsourcing, courtesy of the Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism. Uncut: Revolution Televised is an attempt to make sense of, and further report, the events of the protests that took place in Moldova in the spring of 2009.

The law would give the U.S. Attorney General’s office the right to shut down websites that it deems are participating in piracy and “infringing activities” without due process or proof that a copyright “crime” has been committed.

Thanks to a recent partnership between RFE and Etisalat, mobile phone users in Afghanistan can now subscribe to free SMS updates and breaking news from Radio Azadi.

The woman, Cheng Jianping, 46, was accused of “disturbing social order” for resending a Twitter message from her fiancé that mocked young nationalists who held anti-Japanese rallies in several cities last month.

Technology—no matter how well designed—is only a magnifier of human intent and capacity. It is not a substitute.

When you drive past a car wreck, it’s human nature to stop, or at least slow down, and look. That’s pretty much how I feel about the debate that’s broken out concerning Malcolm Gladwell’s piece in The New Yorker about how “The revolution will not be tweeted” and Twitter founder Biz Stone’s response in The [...]

There are plenty of dire health issues throughout the world that can’t easily be solved, but a lucky few can be helped along by mobile technology.

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action proposes a detailed plan that positions digital and media literacy as an essential life skill. It outlines steps that policymakers, educators and community advocates can take to help Americans obtain that skill — and thrive in the digital age.

Google Maps has retraced the border between two Central American countries after a territory dispute developed.

Government ministers ask the US to order American websites hosting al-Qaeda videos to remove them.

As the history of past U.S. efforts to use technology to bring progress to other nations reveals, the United States should focus its current digital diplomacy efforts on small wins, not transformative victories.

Clearwire, a wireless broadband company, began offering 4G wireless Internet in New York City and other areas across the United States.

One summer in 2005, a man in Nigeria wanted in. He found a shop, put his money down on the counter, and left with a cellphone: a Nokia 1100, nearly identical to the model discontinued by AT&T that same year… Along with a staggering 250,000,000 others, he had traded up in the communications world, from [...]

A report circulating around NATO considers making cyber-attacks a possible trigger for joint military action by the alliance.

In this essay, Twitter’s co-founder argues that social media can — and has — helped create real change