Digitale tanker fra hverdagen

#savetheintern – a small big story on the brits, social media and political communication

Anna Ebbesen — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:26:16 +0000

#savetheintern was one of the most trending topics in all of England yesterday, thanks to a foolish intern at the House of Parliament. In an 2 min state of dumb wit this young intern used the twitter account of her boss, MP Tom Watson, to tweet the following:

The fun lasted only a few more minutes until the tweet quickly became re-tweeted to fame and media attention. Maybe she thought that only he could see it or perhaps only her friends? Regardless, 15 min later, she regretted her actions:

Luckily for her, Tom Watson seems to have a sense of humor. He has replied to all the fuss his intern + twitter + the british media had created in an excellent (and very dry humored) blogpost containing:

“a bullet point list of answers to many of the questions that have been posed, as well as a few things I would like to get of my chest”.

Ironically, the young intern might have been saved by Twitter as well – the platform that got her into this mess in the first place. Because the third tweet that was posted by his account after her initial blunder, was him saying sorry, and that he will deal with the matter offline.

A reaction that fueled the #savetheintern hashtag and prompted people to call him, asking him not fire the intern, according to The Telegraph.

The logic of this story is indeed odd – from laughter and outcry to a plee to let the intern keep her job. From Tom Watsons chair it must have been frustrating to watch the whole thing spin out of control as the actions on twitter became news articles on BBC and The Telegraph and fueled several spin off conversations on interns rights, their pay etc.

Going over this story again today, Tom Watson’s blogpost truly stands out as a great response. As one twitter user describes it:

A world without wikipedia? No thanks

Anna Ebbesen — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:16:55 +0000

Today, I was reminded of how things were, before we grew accustomed to a free flow of information accessible to everyone with access to the web. And I don’t want to go back.

The campaign against SOPA and PIPA has taken different forms over the past months. The two pieces of legislation are feared by many, who claim they’ll ruin the web as we know it, and thus ruin the free flow of ideas and information. Today, Wikipedia made the boldest move yet, and subjected the English version of the crowd-sourced cyclopedia to a complete blackout. A move that echoed around the world, and even made headlines here in little Denmark.

Television’s comeback as gatekeepers

TV 2 GO'Morgen Danmark and their "GO'pedia"

As a response to the blackout, the most popular morning show in the country gathered a team of experts to answer all those questions that you weren’t able to look up on Wikipedia. (Being Danes, we could of course just use the Danish, Swedish or Norwegian version of Wikipedia, but let’s ignore that for a second). When watching the hosts convey the questions from the viewers to the experts, I was reminded of how things were like when I grew up.

What is this?

There were television quiz programs where contenders had to guess what an object was used for, and discussions at a dinner could continue on and on and on and on, until someone caved and went next door to look it up in an encyclopedia. You needed middle men to get answers, and access to them or the information itself wasn’t easy and certainly not free for all.

Hvad er det? Old Danish television show hosted by Piet Van Deurs

When I moved out as a teenager, I would call my mother with questions, when ever I was discussing a subject and couldn’t remember a detail, or friends couldn’t agree on the nature of something. I’d call her up to pick her brain, and if she couldn’t remember or didn’t know, she would look it up for me in one of our two encyclopedias. A few years later she admitted that the reason why we had two encyclopedias, was because the latest one was bought for me, so I’d be able to take this pool of knowledge with me, when I moved out. It was an economic investment that was worthwhile in her eyes; a necessity.

But when I did, the frequent calls with questions were so nice that she prolonged giving it to me. Can’t say that I blame her – I missed her insightful answers and thoughts on matters from politics to anthropology when I started looking everything up myself.

But, make no mistake, I’d rather call my mother about something I’ve found on Wikipedia, than to be stuck with television programs distributing knowledge found in books.

Wikipedia and the web replaced the action of calling others for answers with the process of creating the answers together, and transformed the printed encyclopedia from being a decisive collection of knowledge to a historical artifact; a static image about how the world was perceived once. Hopefully the conversations will also evolve from solemly being about the facts themselves to where the knowledge came from, how and with what built in assumptions?

Thank you, Go’ Morgen Danmark and the Wikimedia Foundation, for reminding me, how truly fantastic and game changing Wikipedia is, and how utterly grateful I am for all the opportunities the web gives me.

From protesters to #memes

Anna Ebbesen — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:37:05 +0000

You know something has taken hold in society, when the jokesters arrive and turn the grim reality in to humorous objects. You can’t tell jokes about something, unless people know what you’re talking about. It seems that the #Occupy movement have reached that stage, thanks to this policeman – Mr. “Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop”.

Tumblr raises awareness by censoring dashboard

Anna Ebbesen — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 03:04:16 +0000

My posts had been censored

I got quite a chock when I logged on to Tumblr at 9:40 pm. All my posts, as well as the posts from the blogs I subscribe to, had been censored. Images and words were blocked out.

After having scrolled up and down to assure my self that it wasn’t just one image but all; no one post, but all posts, I saw the link at the top of the page:

Stop The Law That Will Censor The Internet!

The link takes you to an advocacy site, where Tumblr asks you to say no, to the two bills congress is currently considering: PROTECT-IP and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

It’s quite a bold step, since it’ll stir some initial panic among the many million users of the platform. On the other hand, it does show you why Tumblr, eBay, Facebook, Google etc., are against the two laws, in such a powerfull way that I’d signed up to call my representative, had I had one.

The take-action-page from Tumblr:

After a quick google, I found ReadWriteWeb’s article about the campaign and their infographic about the SOAP-bill.

Mig og Facebook

Anna Ebbesen — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 21:37:32 +0000

Da Facebook rullede de seneste ændringer ud, forsøgte jeg at undgå at tage stilling, læse med og forstå. Jeg havde gang i alt for meget andet, til også at kunne følge med. Det virkede ærlig talt for overrumplende for mig. Men denne lørdag har der været tid til lidt eftertanke.

Min gamle holdning

Jeg har tidligere kørt den strategi på Facebook, at jeg kun var venner med folk, jeg havde mødt i virkeligheden. Det var et semiprivat sted, som jeg forsøgte at regulere via lister – “professionelle bekendte” kunne ikke se billeder af mig fx, mens dem på “nære venner”-listen kunne se det hele. Jeg brugte FB til at se hvad folk havde gang i, og dermed følge med i deres liv. Samtidig var det uhyre smart, at man ikke behøvede at holde sin adressebog opdateret, hver gang folk skiftede nr., mail og adresse, men trygt læne sig tilbage og vide, at man altid kunne nå folk via Facebook.

Tid til forandring?

Over det sidste år synes den holdning – at FB er privat – at være antikvarisk. Jeg bliver i stigende grad befriended, af folk jeg ikke kender. I starten var det altid lige efter, at jeg havde været i medierne. Når jeg kom hjem fra et tvstudie lå der altid 3-4 venneanmodninger og nogle lidt halvlumre mails fra midaldrende mænd. Men det sidste halve år, har anmodningerne – ikke de lumre mails – kommet i en mere lind strøm. Mange af dem, der vil “vide mere” som flere af dem skriver, har selv over 800 venner, og bruger tydeligvis Facebook som et sted for godt indhold. Privat – offentlig, hvorfor dog bekymre sig om det?

Jeg var lidt inde på tendensen i en artikel i Berlingske i sommers, hvor jeg refererede til presset om hele tiden at være sig selv – du har jo ikke noget at skjule, vel? Du er vel dig selv, ikke?

Men jeg kan faktisk godt lide at gemme mig lidt. Jeg synes ikke, at der er nogen grund til at alle skal se alt. Resultatet bliver derfor, at jeg ikke deler særligt meget, overhovedet. Jeg vandrer mest af alt rundt på Facebook og kommenterer, liker og læser. Da min kæreste skulle fortælle om mig til hans venner, var han overrasket over, at der ikke lå flere billeder han kunne vise. Forklaringen ligger også i, at mine nære venner, der kunne ligge inde med billeder, ikke er den slags, der tager billeder eller deler dem på Facebook (imodsætning til utroligt mange andre). Det ironiske er, at mange af mine nære venner ikke er særligt begejstret for Facebook, og derfor ikke bruger det synderligt ofte. Min private FB sfære er derfor ikke så stor. Kigger man på det ud fra hvem mit “publikum” – mine FBvenner – egentlig er, så virker min tilgang til Facebook derfor også tåbelig. Størstedelen er folk jeg holder meget af, men ikke ser privat, og så forskellige nyhedsudbydere som jeg føler med i via Facebook.

Abonnér?

Oven i de her overvejelser kommer så Facebooks nye tiltag: abonnementer.

Abonnementer krænger en kanaltilgang ned over Facebook. Ved at skrive om folk, hvad de laver, når Facebook anbefaler dig nye folk at abonnerer på, implicere Facebook, at man skal abonnerer på “Social media manager at NyTimes”, fordi hun nok skriver om ting relateret til det. Det er jo det, der er gældende på Twitter og på sin vis også G+. Det var bare ikke sådan det var på Facebook før – der var det personer, man fulgte. I hvertfald i min verden.

Abonnementer gør, at man kan samkøre det, man deler med sine venner, med det man deler med sine professionelle følgere. Så jeg ikke behøver at gå hele vejen over på Twitter for at gøre det, som tilfældet er nu.

Desværre har FB ikke muliggjort, at jeg kan tilgodese abonnementerne UDEN også at dele med mine venner på en let måde. Der er kun en skalering i privatliv eller temaer, ikke omvendt i forhold til at man kan spare ens venner fra det, man deler offentligt, som man let kan på Google+. Hvis man vil ekskludere folk, fra den offentlige deling, skal man ind i indstillinger, vælge brugerdefineret og angive at posten skal deles med X, men ikke Y-liste. Den social graf er dermed ikke længere skabt af bekendtskaber, men interesser.

Nye vaner!

Mine gode ven, Lasse, har lige meddelt mig, at jeg skal til at skrive til ham på de andre kanaler, vi begge to bruger: google chat, G+ og Twitter. FB er slut for ham. Måske var det på tide, at jeg tog konsekvensen af mine “venner” og min i forvejen konservative brug, og begyndte at bruge Facebook som var det Google+.

Også holdt op med at 1) bekymre mig om at kede mine “private” venner, der har mødt mig som Anna og ikke som Anna, hende med det digitale/ sociale medier/ politik etc. (citationstegnene skyldes, at jeg ikke rigtig ved, hvad jeg skal kalde venner, som jeg ikke har fået gennem mit professionelle virke, men som bare kender mig som Anna).

Og i stedet for 2) Begynde at bruge Facebook som var det endnu et sted til holdninger, sjove klips osv.

Offentligt: abonnementer, sociale-medie-Anna

Privat: venner, semi-private Anna.

Det var rart at få på plads, så har jeg et svar jeg kan give, til dem der pt. gerne vil være venner med mig, som jeg aldrig har mødt før.