Tag Archives | Social Network

Phone Snooping ‘Prevented Riots’

By Pelliciari on August 16, 2011 in News 12

Photo: Riemer Palstra (CC)

To tweet or not tweet where you’re rioting next? One option was to shut down social networks so that rioters couldn’t mass communicate. The other option was to allow them to tweet and text, then read their messages to find out what they’re planning next. The latter was able to prevent attacks on the Olympic site and London’s Oxford Street. BBC reports:

Police say they prevented attacks by rioters on the Olympic site and London’s Oxford Street after picking up intelligence on social networks.

Assistant Met Police Commissioner Lynne Owens told a committee of MPs officers learned of possible trouble via Twitter and Blackberry messenger.

But Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin said he had considered asking authorities to switch off social networks.

He said they provided intelligence but could also be misleading.

A number of politicians, media commentators and members of the police force have suggested that Twitter and Blackberry Messenger (BBM) had a role to play in the riots.

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Cellphones Gain Population In Prisons,Though Banned

By Pelliciari on January 3, 2011 in News 2

Photo: United States Department of Homeland Security employee confiscating a cellphone during a pat-down inspection

What do prisoners do for fun? Play games on Facebook, text their friends, and organize strikes via their smartphones. Though prisoners are locked up and cut-off from the outside population, they are finding ways to become and remain part of the digital society. The New York Times reports:

A counterfeiter at a Georgia state prison ticks off the remaining days of his three-year sentence on his Facebook page. He has 91 digital “friends.” Like many of his fellow inmates, he plays the online games FarmVille and Street Wars.

He does it all on a Samsung smartphone, which he says he bought from a guard. And he used the same phone to help organize a short strike among inmates at several Georgia prisons last month.

Technology is changing life inside prisons across the country at the same rapid-fire pace it is changing life outside.

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Facebook Alternative, Diaspora, To Launch September 15

By Pelliciari on August 27, 2010 in News 4

Diaspora (in Greek, διασπορά – “a scattering [of seeds]“) is any movement of a population sharing common national and/or ethnic identity. The new Facebook? Via Wired:

Diaspora, a nascent open competitor to Facebook that raised $200,000 from online contributors (including, ahem, the top dog at Facebook) will launch its much-anticipated service Sept. 15, the company said in a blog post Thursday.

The project aims to create a social network that puts users in charge of their own data — or as Diaspora puts it, a “privacy-aware, personally controlled, do-it-all open source social network.”

Diaspora was started by four New York University students earlier this year after hearing a talk from Free Software guru Eban Moglen, who said Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg had done more harm to the world than anyone his age ever had.

Diaspora’s idea of taking on the social network giant gained momentum and wide publicity in the spring, following yet another controversial Facebook attempt to make users share more information publicly.

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