Judge: Social networking puts privacy at

Judge: Social networking puts privacy at risk – Social networking sites undermine privacy: Read after the jump:

http://ow.ly/1exgtd

Digital divide during UK riots?

Wanted to share a thought that occured to me while reading a report by Pew on the demographics of social media users in the US.

The #UKriots i also made some comments on may fit one conclusion of the report. In the conlusion the report states (and i quote):
We did find that people who are already likely to have large overall social networks – those with more years of education – gravitate to specific SNS platforms, such as LinkedIn and Twitter.
When looking at the use of social media and Blackberries in the #UKriots i already noticed that the rioters used blackberries to organise, while the cleanup was organised mostly through Twitter. Maybe this is because of the social status the different groups have; the rioters underclass, lower middleclass, the cleanup preppry academics with good education (or singing in some majorselling stadiumfilling band)

 

So, if this is true, there is not only a digital divide in age, which is closing looking at the pewreport. There is also another divide amongst social media users themselves. Maybe the UK riots where a glimpse into this divide. Interesting times.

 

 

Think before you share

 

The British autorities may be considering banning social media for rioters and other nonproductive elements of society, the Defence department knows that it has to deal with the new reality that social media will not dissapear if you say GO AWAY really loud.

So in an attempt to show soldiers and their relatives what is smart to do online while on a mission, they made some online video’s about the risks of online presence -notice the cup o ‘tea mum is drinking in one of the clips, how british indeed 🙂

The clips are already a bit outdated, considering the speed that social media is going at, but I just wanted to share one of  those here. Bit of the classic ‘loose lips sink ships meets 21th century’ media going on here. Well done MoD! Maybe the Dutch defense department should consider making the same video’s instead of prohibiting social media as dutch defence secretary Hillen announced (dutch link) last wednesday.  I bet it works a lot better than using the panicbutton. Why? because in reality: there is no panicbutton anymore.

 

Infographic on social media use

The people at Community 102 provided the world with a great infographic about the way social media is used amongt the ages.

It shows that social media is not only a fun tool for the young and aspiring famous. The n-gen is growing up, digital natives -or millenials as 102 calls us-, are growing up.  So is social media.

Most interesting: according to the graphic; 59% of the millenials get their news online. So framing news online is becoming one of the most important things to do for governments if they want to sell their stories to a critical public.

The only way to do that properly, in my humble opinion, is to be interactive, to share and to communicate. Social media needs a new way of thinking about communicating with citizens. And this is becoming ever more vital for governments if they want to keep pace with technological developments which can undermine their legitimacy -Google smart mobs and Howard Rheingold-. Looking at a some dutch government  websites, this whole  interaction thing is something that has yet to be learned. Funny, if you realise how many of the people working their are part of the millenial group.

This infographic once again underscores the importance of social networks as an informationtool.

Governments have the Force.They just dont know to use it wisely…yet.