Congress Banning Social Media?
As if to prove Robert Heinlein correct, the House Administration Committee is, apparently with honorable intent, considering effectively banning the use of popular social media sites, including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook by Members. Soren Dayton couches this in partisan terms: "In typical fashion, House Democrats are trying to pass rules that stifle debate and require regulation." In fact, though, it appears ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 9, 2008 08:54
Brian Beutler Shot in DC Mugging
Blogger Brian Beutler was shot in DC's Adams Morgan neighborhood Monday night, Greg Sargent reports for TPM. Brian Beutler, a well-known progressive blogger, was shot and seriously injured during a mugging last night in Washington, D.C. One bullet damaged Beutler's spleen, and he had it removed during surgery this morning at the Washington Hospital Center. He's expected to make a "pre-trauma" recovery, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 3, 2008 07:01
Presidents and Computer Literacy
Jane Hamsher wants to know, "If You Can’t Use a Computer, How Can You Be President?" I chuckled when I saw the story at memeorandum since, after all, it's unlikely that any president before Bill Clinton could "use" a computer in any meaningful sense. (Maybe Jimmy Carter, who was a nuclear engineer in a past life, could, too, but proficiency ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 24, 2008 10:42
Social Media Overload
Mark Glaser calls attention to one of the strange dilemmas of modern life: deciding whom to "friend" on various social media sites like Facebook and MySpace. Is the person a friend, a real friend, or someone who wants to be a friend? Should I add them as a friend because it’s polite, or ignore them because I want to protect ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 17, 2008 08:38
Intelligence Agencies Don’t Want Intelligent Employees
That's my takeaway from Noah Shachtman's story on the Office of the Director of Intelligence's research on employee screening procedures. With the growing prominence of information technologies (IT) in the home and work place, individuals spend an increasing proportion of time engaging in computer-mediated activities and communications. Many computer-mediated activities provide opportunities for individuals to behave in ways different than ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 12, 2008 12:24
Obama, The Jewish Lobby, and the Perils of Web 2.0
One of Barack Obama's key advantages in building grassroots support, especially among young people usually not apt to vote, has been his innovative use of the latest Web techniques, including the integration of social networking technologies. Not only did he lap the field in getting "friends" on Facebook and MySpace but he actually hired the guy who invented Facebook ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on June 9, 2008 07:23
Journalism in a Post-Literate Society
In a recent speech at Harvard, TPM founder Josh Marshall argued that the competition from the Internet is killing newspapers but improving journalism. Stacy McCain, though, contends, "iIt's not the Internet that's killing journalism, it's illiteracy." Rather than former print consumers switching to digital media, "There is, instead, a shrinking readership of news, period, regardless of whether the news is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 19, 2008 09:53
Saudi Woman Killed for Chatting on Facebook
"A young Saudi Arabian woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook." The Guardian's Damien McElroy: The unnamed woman from Riyadh was beaten and shot after she was discovered in the middle of an online conversation with a man, the al-Arabiya website reported. The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 1, 2008 12:31
Professors on Facebook II
Responding to a Stephanie Rosenbloom piece in the NYT about professors who blur the lines dividing them from their students via Facebook and other social media networks, Dan Drezner observes, I neither accept nor proffer friend requests from current students. I do this because, well, I'm not their friend -- and letting them think otherwise is deeply problematic. I'm their teacher, their ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 20, 2008 13:29
Google to Store Patient Health Records
Google continues its quest to take over the world with a new program to store health records online. Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that's likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader. The pilot project to ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 21, 2008 11:04
