CRUSH: Facebook in the Time of Syphilis
CRUSH is a fast and fun weekly round-up of social media news Can you get Syphilis from Facebook? According to a public health report in Britain, you can blame social media networks for the recent rise in disease cases by making it easier for individuals to meet up for casual sex.
While it's far-fetched to believe Facebook is responsible for STDs, it could be aiding insomniacs. If you've started counting tweets instead of sheep when you're having trouble sleeping, a new study reveals you're not alone. An increasing number of Facebook and Twitter users are checking their accounts when they wake up during the night.
The big news on Capitol Hill this week - the health care bill was passed. But, as expected, along with it came strong reactions from both the left and right. The tweeter who threatened to assassinate President Obama has been taken into custody, and his Twitter account is gone. ABC News does have screenshots of the profanity-laden tweets here. Can 140 for characters still land you 15-20? We'll find out soon. From the left corner, we have the first (of possibly many?) mash-up remix of House Minority Leader John Boehner's "No You Can't" rant with Will.i.am's "Yes, We Can" video from the '08 election cycle.
Google's newest project, which promises to install high speed fiber-optic Internet cables in at least one lucky city, has got mayors across the country going to extreme measures. It started in Kansas, where the mayor of Topeka temporarily changed the city's name to Google, Kansas. And the stunts have only gotten more adventurous, as Mayor of Duluth, Minnesota took a dip in frigid Lake Superior, while the Mayor of Sarasota Florida jumped into a tank filled with sharks.
But someone not happy to be catching the attention of Google? The British Special Air Service. It seems Google camera cars have "outed" a secret base of the SAS by marking the location on Google's maps street view, and the British military and parliament aren't happy about their cover being blown.
That brings us to our CRUSH of the Week, where we would like to take a chance to applaud Google for standing up to China.
CRUSH: Sonic the Hedgehog
Mid-March means many things: The death of Caesar, spring break, and the conclusion of SXSW. CRUSH takes the best of what happened in social media, and serves it up hot, in about 3 minutes. Among other things, we found Sonic the Hedgehog this week. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b65N9NXLrbk
What was the coolest thing to come out of South by Southwest Interactive? While Twitter's "@Anywhere" shows some promise, our money is on Aardvark, the social networking tool that lets you pose a question to your networks, and finds the best person to give you an answer.
Not featured at SXSW this year, but sure to make a splash when it is: The new app from the Iphone that lets you form an instant social network with the people around you wherever you are.
In other news, Facebook ads are getting more expensive since the news came out that Facebook beat Google for the number one spot in Weekly U.S. web traffic last week.
On to politics...Healthcare has passed! And in addition to the massive email traffic that urged everyone to contact congress, Organizing for America scored in our book for being the site meant to personalize reform.
On the other hand (and on the other coast) Carly Fiorina's California senate campaign may be trying to ingratiate itself with some folks in Humboldt County, because we suspect her latest political web ads are - well - chemically induced.
Finally - Sonic the hedgehog lives, and you got to see it to believe it.
Teach Girls Media Literacy and Sexual Health Through Filmmaking
If you've been on the interweb at anypoint in the last month you have probably been asked by someone (or lots of someones) to support a project or idea in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Contest. I've seen ideas I thought were good and ideas I thought were not-so-good, but I just learned of one that is blog-worthy. I think I have little to add to what Monely Soltani and her team have written. I've included that below, but the bottom line is, they are in 16th place right now and rising. They need to get to 10th or better to get funding, so if you want to empower young women to educate themselves and their peers about reproductive health, give it a vote:
imMEDIAte Justice is a summer program that empowers young women from LA to share their experience of reproductive justice through film. With film mentors, young women write & direct films that offer a fresh take on sexual health education.
imMEDIAte Justice trains youth in media literacy and reproductive health with a gender-conscious lens. Professional filmmakers provide the mentorship, tools, & distribution teens need to share their vision with the world.
The focus for summer 2010 is to create positive sexuality education films by LGBTQ youth. We envision sexual education as an inclusive, exploratory, youth-driven process that utilizes new media as a tool to share and safely access information. Our online community, CALIBODYPOLITIX, keeps young women informed about reproductive health and justice in California with the largest network of national and local reproductive health resources for youth.
The program and retreats foster positive self-image, supportive female alliances and media literacy skills, as participants graduate through a two-tier leadership development program that increases their influence as filmmakers and leaders of the next generation of women.
A 2.0 Modest Proposal for U.S. Urban Cities
Over the past few months I've been perusing Craigslist for real estate properties in NYC and New Jersey partly because I like to window shop in virtual space, and partly because I'm nearing that stage in my life of wanting to own a piece of the American pie. While scanning the classifieds I came across tons of new housing development projects in areas like Newark, New Jersey, for instance. Home developers are offering to pay closing cost with $8,000 tax incentives, 10-year warranties, 5-year tax abatement, and even 42" big screen TVs to lure new buyers. I couldn't help but think, "hell, I need to get in where I fit in!" Though, the techy-nerdy-community-activist in me wondered why these same housing developers weren't offering computers or laptops along with Energy Star appliances or, in the very least, include 1-year's worth of free broadband Internet connection service as part of an incentives package.
Surely, families in urban areas would benefit more from having a new computer and high-speed Internet access (with quality bandwidth space) in their homes than from having a 42" big screen TV mounted on the wall.
But apparently, it's not that simple.
While the federal government has set aside funds to support broadband infrastructure projects in rural areas, there are no mandates ordering that these funds be specifically allocated to lower income communities through urban renewal projects or by way of public housing initiatives. So as long as the federal government doesn't mandate or provide subsidies for broadband Internet, then chances are local urban governments won't set aside extra funds for these initiatives in their annual budgets.
New research from The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies indicates that broadband use is highest among those with greater levels of income or education. Yet, despite this, and older studies, federal and local governments appear apathetic toward ensuring that across-the-board broadband Internet access is provided within lower income residential communities.
Granted, issues concerning how local governments and business provide services to communities, through either ISP (Internet Service Provider) or subscriber, indeed matter. Who will fit the bill if our federal government won't mandate or subsidize city governments and private companies to offer these services and infrastructure?
If what is currently taking place in the UK with the Digital Economy Bill is any indication of what might happen in the US, that is, governments not exempting universities, libraries, and small businesses to provide open Wi-Fi services (h/t @blogdiva)--then yeah, we're screwed.
Or maybe not.
As the Founder and President of Media Make Change, it is my responsibility to incite discussion and offer ideas that address the disproportionate relationship between marginalized communities and broadband Internet access, including digital literacy--while, at the same time, agitate community leaders and politicians to act in the very best interest of these communities.
So with that, I offer the following 2.0 Modest Proposal, with the promise that infants won't be offered up as food.
- Since "age, family income, and educational attainment are three major barriers that critically stifle minority Internet use and home broadband adoption," I propose that urban city governments and housing developers include at least one computer or laptop per household with at least 1-year free broadband service as part of their incentive packages to attract new, young, and lower-income (including fixed-income) home owners.
- If condo developers in Los Angeles can provide free Wi-Fi access to its buyers, then so can developers (with large amounts of money, supplies, and credit set aside for each project) in urban neighborhoods like Cleveland, Detroit, D.C., and Newark. (H/T @sjean70).
- With Teachers Villages springing up in cities like Newark, NJ, why not build "Internet Villages" made up of small Internet Cafes and Learning Centers that directly provide residents with Internet services right in their very own backwards? Organizations like Media Make Change can work with local governments and housing developers to host free digital media and web training workshops that encourage using technology as means for civic engagement and social entrepreneurship.
- Since Google plans "to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States . . . [and] offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people," then I propose that these same urban city governments and housing developers take Google up on its offer and build Internet Cafes within a one-mile radius of these residential areas. So the question of who will fit the bill if our federal government won't mandate or subsidize public and private companies to offer these services? is answered. In fact, Google can, if you let 'em. (H/T @AUFBRAND).
Seems easy enough. However, the reality is if we had the full support of the federal government to encourage mandate implement these initiatives, life would be a helluva lot easier for advocates, businesses, and community members alike.
So for now, I suggest contacting the following government officials and urge them to consider a 2.0 Modest Proposal, which encourages implementing projects that address broadband Internet access and digital literacy disparities within low-income communities, communities of color, communities with dis/abilities, and senior communities.
Feel free to tell them that I sent you.
The Feds:
Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
House Committee on Science and Technology
The Congressional Black Caucus
Mayor Offices in Urban Cities:
The list goes on so please feel free to add your cities and thoughts below.
In solidarity,
Tara
**UPDATE: Looks like someone has already been working on bringing broadband Internet into low income communities. Check out Rey Ramsey, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of One Economy Corporation.
Email: tara (at) mediamakechange (dot) org
Media Make Change on Twitter.
CRUSH IT: This week in social media
A quick digest of the week's social media news with a side of fun? You're welcome.
A quick digest of the week's social media news with a side of fun? You're welcome. Introducing CRUSH, the weekly web-show that takes the news on the social media newsladder and crushes it down to reveal the gems.
In this weeks' edition, we discuss the coincidence of Google releasing Buzz at about the same time they struck a deal with the NSA to share info. No relationship - just like Glenn Beck getting a show on Fox the day before Obama was inaugurated.
Facebook, meanwhile made changes to its privacy settings allowing users more control of what info is shared. That won't help people who choose to share their info though. With the growth of location sharing, there is a new website that points out a nagging issue with letting people know where you are all the time.
On the political side of thigs, this past week marked the one year anniversary of the signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Organizing for America released this video to mark the occasion, and the House Committee on Education and Labor realeased a great video as well. This is not the first time the Ed and Labor committee has turned to creative webvideos to spread a message, and we hope it will not be the last.
Sarah Palin was asked what she thought the biggest threat to America is, and when her supporters shouted 'Obama' she felt the need to clarify that they had said it, not she. She didn't correct them though. If Mrs. Palin cared about 'those little facty things' she and her supporters might want to thumb through the Quadrennial Defense Review, which catalougues the various security threats to the nation as determined by, well, the people who spend their careers assessing threats to our nation.
Need a job?
Finally, this is from Ben Whitehair on Facebook, and it is hilarious:
5 steps to an AWESOME day: Step 1: Go to google maps... www.google.com/maps Step 2: Search for 39 Rugdeveien, Bergen, Hordaland, Norge Step 3: Zoom in until you get to street view Step 4: Look to the left of the truck and see two men in scooba gear Step 5: Click to make the truck go down the road and watch the men chase the truck....
Remember to post to the Social Media Newsladder, and subscribe to CRUSH on Youtube here.