To bomb-tweet or not to bomb-tweet... and their consequences

Tilburg - In general, the Dutch strongly opposed the introduction of new systems and rules that affect the privacy of people. The citizens are skeptical about giving up their privacy, because they fear that the information falls in wrong hands instead of the database of the government. The privacy in the Netherlands is getting further eroded by measures such as storing fingerprints in a central database. To get more specify: think of the biometric passport or our national medical file which is put in a global database.

However, we cherish our privacy, but still we exposure ourself more in public than we actually think. We radiate daily signals to the ‘outside’ world what we are doing, whether we are 'on holiday', 'are cooking spaghetti" or "getting divorced", we share it en public with the rest of the world through social media like Hyves, Facebook and Twitter. So if we read between the lines of everyone we know more of each other than we think. This process often seems to go unconscious and seems innocent enough, it tastes familiar to read what you are best friends are doing on a occasional day like this ...

However, last week, a girl of seventeen years is bored and puts an ironic tweet online. She tweets she is planning a terrorist attack at her school, that is what you call innocent, right? Until the police arrived at her door, because these bomb-tweets were seen as a 'real' threat for Dutch society and took her.

This example shows that we are perfectly traceable and the social control through social media is getting huge. They are watching us. Anyway don’t think if you are not using social media, you are not traceable, we are always traceable, by our computer network, telephone networks or even when we get money from the bank. There are even surveillance camera’s in your shopping street and park...Big Brother is really watching you!

My moral of this story? Think about how you act on social media on public places and especially about the consequences of your tweets. Personally, I'm curious about your opinion: What do you think of the bomb-tweet? Is it ethical to post something like this on the Internet? And is the police exaggerating or not? Let me know!

One message with great impact: FHJ-Gate

Tilburg - How a simple tweet could turn the world upside down. Maybe ‘the world’ is somewhat exaggerated, but for sure everyone who’s journalist at Tilburg and surroundings held their breath for one second. The riot all started at the Fontys Hogeschool voor Journalistiek, with its abbrevation: FHJ. Let this ‘gate’ be a lesson for everyone who do not know how powerful social media can be.

Let’s get back to the beginning, just over a year ago. A journalism student on the FHJ published an online column on the fontys.nl website, where he ventilated his opinion about the quality of FHJ’s education. The things he wrote were not too positive, maybe it was sometimes too exaggerated, but he made his point. He mentioned that the communication on school would be anything but smooth and that the quality of the lectures is far below average and that is his right to find.

He wrote:

“The FHJ is becomming a rusted institute, which affects the carreer of all the students on the FHJ before it is even begun. I am sick and tired of the leftist literature we have to study during class and I am tired to ignore the disinterest of some teachers and to get lectures about the effects of mustard gas.” 

He made his point in a provocative way, which balanced, in my opinion, on the edge of tastefulness. This is perfectly entitled to share his critical view with the rest of the world, because censorship is outdated, right? This was his freedom of expression, but his column made many evil tongues wagging. It aroused the interest of Bert Brussen, Internet journalist and social media freak. He added fuel to the fire in his column “Studying journalism at Fontys in Tilburg? Please do not”... During his visit to the FHJ he wasn’t charmed by the leftist stronghold, Brussen wanted to rise a discussion about the FHJ.

Besides, in that period there was a release of the Guide to Higher Education and it made it all worse... just guess... FHJ was almost at the bottom of the list, which means FHJ was found one of the worst journalism schools in the Netherlands. 

The teachers made a counterattack against their students on social media like Twitter and Hyves and that’s when the online mud throwing between students and teachers started. One of the teachers wrote on Hyves, responding on a Tweet:

“I wonder myself if journalism is privileged with our students FHJ, because last night I saw the debate of Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven with PVV'er Fritsma and yet I read another deliberate expression of someone who wants to be a journalist (student of FHJ):
“My god, Van Nieuwenhoven is a stupid roasted cunt  # penw” “

Another FHJ-lecturer responded on Twitter, about the “stupid roasted cunt”-Tweet: “That student is now in my book. The boy apparently missed a lot of education.” “What that book is all about? You will find out eventually.”

I think it is not chic to argue, discuss or ‘fight’ with students en public, especially through the social media where younger people are overrepresented. It causes more damage than clarification and it shows some weaknesses of the company. In addition, the written language can be interpreted in different ways, like the ‘book-incident’ can be interpret as intimidating. In my opinion the teachers responds only causes negative advertising for the school. It converts the school into disrepute and there they will be judged on (in the future). Teacher can be found unsympathetic, especially in combination with the tweets and after the release of the Guide to Higher Education. What is you opinion about it? Let me know via the comment section below!

Revolt in Egypt due to social networksite Twitter

Tilburg - That Social Media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have a great impact on our daily lifes is shown by the events of last week in Egypt. On the Internet people even talk about a “Twitter revolution”, but that sounds a bit premature to me. Yes, Social media are prominent in the information flows from Egypt, but Mubarak has not yet been overthrown by the influences of it.  

In this case I support freelance journalist Dirk Wanrooij’s reasoning of this Twitter-phenomenon. He wrote on the NRC Next-blog: "Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Al-Jazeera are not the cause of the uprising in Egypt. They only have a catalytic effect."

The Egyptian demonstrators used Facebook and Twitter four days in a row to mobilize friends and family to protest against the dictatorial regime of President Hosni Mubarak. Through these messages on social networks Egyptians knew where the demonstrations began and what route would be followed. That is why the Egyptian government closed the access to the Internet in an attempt to curb protests.

Still, there was also another stream of information available from the ordinary Egyptians who communicate through Twitter and Facebook. On many blogs you could follow from minute to minute what was happening in Egypt, because Video Items of the riots and violence were captured by mobile phones and also used as evidence to show the whole world the violent actions of the government. In that way you can see social media as a huge arsenal of communication and information resources.

The messages disseminated through sites such as Twitter are spreading like wildfire in a short amount of time on the Web. The protesters achieved their own benefit, but also journalists made good use of this information. Not only they could find out where the riots took place, but even after it became dangerous for the Western journalists in the hotbed of riots, the social media were consulted by television stations worldwide as a information source. 

Freelance journalist Dirk Wanrooij went through the streets of Cairo and noted there that "the majority of people on the street is not using Twitter or Facebook and they probably have no idea what it means. They are driven by a lack of freedom and be inspired by neighbors, friends and colleagues."

Yet, it is not the first time that social media are used in revolts. During the Iranian revolt of 2009, Twitter is by far the most important channel. Not only for the mutual mobilization, but also for disseminating information. Video recordings made by Iranian residents caused a global wave of outrage at the barbaric methods of the Iranian regime.

Hello world, this is me!

A whole new world opens for me, because from now on I will ventilate my opinions and observations on this blog. My main interest is the impact of the phenomenon social media (Twitter, Facebook, Hyves and so on) on daily life and that is why this topic will frequently return on this blog.

But first, before we get started: let me give a short introduction of who I am. It is always nice to know who you are communicating with. Well, my name is Mariëlla (friends call me Jella) and I am a gratuated journalist since 2009. However, I was hungry for information so I decided to develop myself further and went back into college. Right now I am studying Business Communications and Digital Media on the University of Tilburg and I am in my senior year.

For now enough with the talk, hopefully you will come back in the near future to follow me.