For someone as active as I am in social media, perhaps the title of this blog entry is a little extreme. But bear with me. Or, to be more precise, bear with me those of you in the ever dwindling band of people who are going to read this.
This blog, I have concluded, exists mostly thanks to a combination of fortuitous circumstances 6 years ago that has seen me through to this, my 1461st post.
I’ve been attending the EuroPCom conference in Brussels yesterday and today, and the panels and coffee breaks are full of discussions about how to better communicate the European Union to citizens.
Sorry but I am really tired of this ‘debate’.
If you’re Aacme Manufacturing Inc., your starting point on Facebook is simple – you create a Facebook Page. People like it, your staff administer it, and it gives you tools to build interaction with your customers. If you’re Joe Bloggs, your starting point on Facebook is equally simple – you get a profile. That’s what we all have as individuals.
As a politician it was always a little more complicated, because in some way the person is the organisation, and (some) politicians have personal Facebook profiles too. Continue reading
I’ve been watching today’s debate in the House of Commons about the response to riots across the UK. Others are better placed to analyse the substance of the security or policing response but I will focus on just one point: how MPs and the Prime Minister have been referring to social media, and specifically controlling it, and how this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the medium. Continue reading
I’m starting to write this blog entry at 2123 CET on 22nd July 2011. We have known for a few hours that twin attacks have taken place in Norway – an explosion in central Oslo and a series of shootings at Utøya, an island in Tyrifjorden to the north east of Oslo where a Labour Party youth meeting was taking place.
Beyond that what do we actually know? Rather little, at least for sure. That’s indeed the position taken by Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg, who was calm and collected in a television statement (can’t find the video of it online), saying it was not known who or what was to blame, the priority was for everyone’s security, and people should remain calm. Spot on, and my good friend Bente Kalsnes who lives in Oslo agrees.
Hell, crackdown by the evil Facebook! Shutting down student protest! In cahoots with the authorities! Even Evgeny Morozov is onto it:
Look folks, this was a problem waiting to happen. Here’s why.
OK, you have worked our the basics of Twitter. If you haven’t, then read Jessica Hische’s excellent guide (even if it’s Mum, not Mom), and I’ve written a few words on Twitter for politics. Then read on, for this is a guide about how to use Twitter Lists, the way to make Twitter manageable.
I’m often asked how I follow 2900 people on Twitter. You can’t read that much! Sorry you 2900, but I don’t read all your tweets. Nor does anyone who follows a lot of people.
So what do I read, and how?
I saw this tweet earlier from Brian Duggan who works for EPLP in their London office:
I followed the link to the letters page of The Guardian, and this is what I get:
Your report on the conviction of John Sweeney should be essential reading for some of my colleagues in the European parliament who have consistently argued against the very programme that brought this murderer to justice (Report, 4 April). Last year the Guardian reported that the UK requested Eurojust’s help in more cases than any other EU country. Yet time and again, the Conservatives and Ukip in Brussels have refused to support the organisation, a body set up to help the police work more effectively with their colleagues in other EU countries. Perhaps they don’t see the link between abstract agreements in Brussels and the reality of fighting crime.
Claude Moraes MEP
Labour’s European spokesperson on justice and home affairs
The link on the Guardian site leads here, not exactly informative about the processes behind the case. So how about Moraes’s website? That has just a copy-paste of the letter. His briefings page contains no information about Eurojust or this issue more widely. The link to his Twitter account from his website is broken.
So what do I learn from all of this? Well it shows my MEP is at least active – he’s writing to the newspapers. But I don’t actually learn anything. How are the Tories and UKIP blocking Eurojust? Does Labour, the EPLP, PES or S&D group have a proper policy? How should Europe-wide judicial cooperation work? Not a clue.
Now I can understand why a letter to a newspaper has to be short, but surely the website or Twitter account of a politician should be just the place to add that extra context?
