government Tag

Twitter Goes Into Library Archives

We are always told we need to be careful what we post on the internet because it could one day come back to haunt us. Now matter how far back we’ve posted, our tweets could come back to haunt us. That’s because on Wednesday, The Library of Congress announced they will now archive all public tweets dating back from 2006.

“The Library’s primary mission is research and it receives copies of every book, pamphlet, map, print, and piece of music registered in the United States,” said Twitter CEO Biz Stone in a blog post. “Recently, the Library of Congress signaled to us that the public tweets we have all been creating over the years are important and worthy of preservation.”

According to the Library of Congress, “The Library has been collecting materials from the web since it began harvesting congressional and presidential campaign websites in 2000. Today we hold more than 167 terabytes of web-based information, including legal blogs, websites of candidates for national office, and websites of Members of Congress.”

The news broke on Twitter yesterday afternoon and the response from the Twitter community has been mixed.  Melissa Fazli, an avid Twitter user said she was excited about the announcement and tweeted, “We are a part of history.  Awesome!”

Google Optimistic About Future In China

It’s been nearly a month since the battle between Google & China went public, and for the first time since the insident Google co-founder Sergey Brin said at the TED conference on Friday that he’s optimistic that Google will not end up pulling out of China because of the recent hacking and censorship issues. 

“I’m an optimist. I want to find a way to work within the Chinese system and provide more and better information,” he said. “I think a lot of people think I’m naive, and that may be true.” (more…)

iePlexus Social Media News Brief: February 12, 2010

MySpace’s CEO stepped down this week, while many Olympians are wondering if they can use social media during the games. Find out the details in today’s Social Media News Brief… (more…)

Obama & The Social Media World

It’s not really news that President Obama is for social media, since many say his presence on social media helped him get to the White House.  And although he maybe for it, he’s still just learning how to use it.  Last week, when the President visited the Red Cross headquarters to learn what they were doing in effort to help Haiti, the President hit the Twitter ‘submit’ button for the very first time.  Although he has his own Twitter account, he’s never actually personally used it.

Tonight, President Obama is expected to give his first State of the Union address to the nation.  And for the first time ever, social media has already begun to play a role in the president’s State of the Union speech.  First the Rethink Afghanistan organization has started a widespread war protest on the White House’s Facebook page.  What started as an effort to obtains 20,000 signatures on Rethink Afghanistan’s website, moved to the social media world after they had reached their goal.  (more…)

China Bites Back At Google

The Chinese government is fighting back against Google’s comments yesterday, saying they would no longer filter out information on their website. 

“The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet,” said Jiang Yu, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.  (more…)

Social Media Plays Role In Policy Making

After yesterday’s blog post about the GOP using social media to educate the American public on the Health Care Reform Act, StrategyOne & Edelman, PR firms based out of Washington DC, released a the results of a survey which suggests that social media may play an integral part in policy making. 

Of the 396 senior staff members from both the U.S. and Europe whom were surveyed, 96 percent said they often use online resources for public policy research.  Fifty-four percent of the staffers had also reported learning of policy issues online for the very first time, while nearly one in five actually changed a policy position based on what they had learned online. (more…)

GOP Using Social Media To Tackle Health Care Reform

Washington is up in arms about the $1.3 trillion health care plan, and it doesn’t look like the fight between Democrats & Republicans is going to end anytime soon.  The Republican Party have joined the rest of the world in the social media and blog world in hopes to share the more details of 1,990 page proposal that most American’s are unlikely to read.  House Majority Leader John Boehner started a campaign on behalf of the GOP on the website Amplify.com, which is an interactive blog-like platform.  They plan on breaking down the bill section by section, and explaining each page in an understandable language to get feedback from the American people. From there, visitor’s are able to comment and share sections via on several social media sites, including Twitter & Facebook.

Boehner’s new media director, Nick Schaper said, “As our members read the bill and uncover harmful provisions, Amplify allows us to clip specific portions and explain what they mean in plain English. It’s our hope that through this effort, we can help Americans understand just what 1,990 pages of bureaucracy really means to them and their families.” (more…)