Do you know where your Prime Minister is?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 4:20 PM - 0 Comments

After some degree of controversy over when he would be leaving today’s summit, the Prime Minister has apparently remained at the First Nations summit throughout the afternoon. His press secretary has been providing regular updates as to his whereabouts via Twitter.

Rupert Murdoch: the media monster becomes human

By Emma Teitel - Monday, January 16, 2012 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments

Simon Dawson/Getty Images

Rupert Murdoch has made an unofficial New Year’s resolution, and it has nothing to do with restoring the privacy of News Corp.’s alleged phone hacking victims—and everything to do with relinquishing some of his own. The beleaguered press baron joined Twitter on New Year’s Eve (his first tweet, on Dec. 31, was a recommendation for a “great book” he had just read called The Rational Optimist) and has been tweeting ever since. His topics have ranged from his publications’ philanthropic projects (“over two million dollars [raised] in two days for orphans of shot hero cop!” Jan. 6), global warming (“Big reversal. NY weather beautiful,” Jan. 7), and of course, American politics (“Obama out to lunch!” Jan. 9). With over 122,000 followers and counting, Murdoch has already racked up more adherents than Regis Philbin and Queen Elizabeth II (two other octogenarians who have taken to the social networking site) combined. For any skeptics out there, the blue checkmark beside his Twitter account (@rupertmurdoch) is legitimate proof that he’s the real Murdoch—and not one of the many imposters who tweet under his name. Still, you might ask, what’s the big deal? With everyone from Enron to your mom on Twitter, why shouldn’t the world’s foremost media mogul be there too, boring us with hand-picked minutiae from his own everyday life?

Here’s one reason: Murdoch and his massive media conglomerate, News Corporation, are embroiled in multiple scandals and lawsuits at the moment, the most notorious of which involve gross privacy violations of innocent people. Which makes a compendium of tips and quips from the guy who (allegedly) brought you the Milly Dowler phone-hacking scandal a less than charming proposition. Secondly, if his performance at the hearing into the Milly Dowler affair is indicative, Rupert, no spring chicken, is possibly already down a mental pint or two; who knows what kind of dementia-induced faux pas he could make with the world at his fingertips? Twitter and Murdoch, you’d suspect, would be a match made in media hell. Surprisingly, they’re not.

Because @rupertmurdoch turns out to be infinitely more likeable than Rupert Murdoch in the flesh. How do we end up liking him? Let me count the ways.

Continue…

Internet 1, Old School Discretion 0

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 11:24 AM - 0 Comments

Via Twitter, Democratic Reform Minister Tim Uppal has announced that the ban on reporting election results before all polls have closed will be rescinded.

The original purpose of the ban was to prevent Western Canadian voters from knowing results from the Atlantic Provinces before casting their ballots.  At the time, there was a four hour difference between the closing of the polls in Atlantic Canada and in British Columbia.  To address this gap, Parliament introduced staggered voting hours in 1996 which ensures that the outcome of any general election cannot be known before polls close anywhere in Canada. 

“We’re in the 21st century,” added Minister Uppal. “The ban, which was enacted in 1938, does not make sense with the widespread use of social media and other modern communications technology.”

Bad portraits done good

By Anthony A. Davis - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 11:10 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Chris Bolin

In Calgary’s Crossroads Market, Mandy Stobo spends her days in the blood pit of a former Canada Packers meat plant. Here in her somewhat spooky art studio, Stobo, 28, paints large neo-expressionist paintings that sell for anywhere from $800 to $8,000. But it’s a different kind of art the self-taught Stobo began creating last May on her kitchen table—a project she calls Bad Portraits—that’s generating, if not art-circle buzz, then plenty of tweets. In the past six months, Stobo has created more than 800 Bad Portraits: stacks of splashy neon watercolour renderings of people, ranging from the famous to pretty much anyone who asks. She spends about 45 minutes on each portrait, and then sells the original watercolour for $100. So far, she has sold about 150, a few dozen of which have been purchased by the “Twitterati”—celebs and lesser-knowns who have large followings on Twitter. But you need not spend a nickel to get your own Bad Portrait. Stobo will happily paint a Bad Portrait for anyone who asks, then email them a free digital copy. Many people use them as avatars on personal Web pages. Continue…

No apologies

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 1:30 PM - 0 Comments

Lisa Raitt and Vic Toews are profoundly saddened, but Pat Martin regrets nothing (aside from swearing at a specific Twitter user).

“What I say to my private universe is an expression of what I am really feeling and I don’t apologize for that. I don’t retract it. It is a f—ing disgrace, what they’re doing. They’re running roughshod over everything that is good and decent about our parliamentary democracy and Canadians should be outraged and their elected representatives on their behalf should be outraged.”

And now a word from Pat Martin

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 8:59 PM - 0 Comments

Via Twitter, the NDP MP reacts to the government’s latest move to limit debate in the House.

This is a fucking disgrace…closure again. And on the Budget! There’s not a democracy in the world that would tolerate this jackboot shit

For gods sake. In these uncertain economic times, don’t you think our parliament should be debating our federal budget? Some due diligence?

Retweeted tea leaves

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 14, 2011 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

On Saturday, Bob Rae retweeted a link to a newspaper column that suggested he might be the best person to lead the Liberals into the next election. But on Sunday, Bob Rae retweeted someone quoting him about his own interim status.

Whatever one makes of all that, Mr. Rae’s comments of two weeks ago, to an audience at Carleton University, seem fairly definitive.

As for Rae’s part in becoming the new leader now that Michael Ignatieff has stepped down? “It won’t be me,” he said, to which the atmosphere in the room became heavy. “I’m not going to run for leadership.” 

Let’s all have a good laugh about parliamentary accountability

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 1:10 PM - 13 Comments

Unable to get via Twitter to his question about Tony Clement’s promised committee appearance, John McCallum tried the Question Period yesterday. John Baird promptly stood on Mr. Clement’s behalf and assured the House that Mr. Clement would be taking questions from a parliamentary committee at some point.

This segued nicely into a lively exchange between Charlie Angus and Mr. Clement.

When ministers of the crown tweet

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 17, 2011 at 7:26 PM - 8 Comments

After QP this afternoon, Liberal MP John McCallum tweeted a little mockery of Tony Clement.

JohnMcCallumMP Minister Raitt responded directly to allegations against her, why does @tonyclementCPC stay seated when he is asked about his conduct?

TonyclementCPC @JohnMcCallumMP The Minister who made the decisions on G8 funding answers the questions in Parliament: John Baird.

JohnMcCallumMP @TonyclementCPC Does this mean you will not answer G8 Legacy Fund questions at your long-awaited appearance before committee?

As of this typing, Mr. Clement has not responded to this last provocation.

The minister’s argument here is that, though he and his mayors came up with the list of projects to be funded and though he took questions during QP about the G8 Legacy Fund a year ago and though he took questions about the G8 Legacy Fund from reporters in the House foyer last month, since it was Mr. Baird who, in his previous portfolio, signed off on the funding of those projects, it is thus now Mr. Baird’s responsibility to stand inside the House and account for the spending.

Whistle stops and tweets

By Chris Sorensen - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Sarah MacKinnon

Twitter has emerged as a favourite tool of U.S. politicians trying to get their message out, even if that message is former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin telling people to “refudiate” something. And with US$6 billion expected to be spent during the 2012 U.S. presidential election campaign, executives at Twitter have decided it’s a good time to cash in on all of the partisan bickering flying back and forth in 140 characters or less. Twitter recently said it will start selling political ads through its “promoted tweets.” The tweets won’t appear in users’ regular feeds, but will show up during searches. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is said to be one of the politicians included in Twitter’s pilot project. Perhaps he’s hoping to boost his 100,000 Twitter followers—a far cry from Palin’s 655,000, not to mention U.S. President Barack Obama’s 10 million.

Fun: the missing new Facebook feature

By Jesse Brown - Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 3:32 PM - 12 Comments

It’s either Facebook or it’s me: one of us has lost the plot.

Like most people, I’m baffled by the new layout. The faux-Twitter feed with its annoying pop-up balloons, crammed in the top right corner, is apparently called the “Ticker.” It competes for my attention with a list of my online friends below. Some have green dots next to them, and some phone icons. Some suddenly pop up, demanding live text chats. Do I have a green dot? I haven’t a clue.

My traditional News Feed has changed–the friends I want to hear about seem to be gone, replaced by others Facebook has prioritized by some mysterious logic. Someone posted instructions on how to change this back, but I can’t remember who it was and what to search for. Between the News Feed and the Ticker (and isn’t the Ticker also a News Feed?), there are faces of strangers I am encouraged to “subscribe” to. What does that mean? Has “friending” become “subscribing”? Will they know I’ve subscribed to them? How about everyone else? Who has subscribed to me? Continue…

Good news, bad news: August 25-31, 2011

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 5, 2011 at 3:30 PM - 0 Comments

Good news

Manish Swarup/AP

Safe passage

Plans to build a 4,300-km pipeline between the Alberta oil sands and refineries in Texas will have “no significant” environmental impact, according to a U.S. State Department report. Although the controversial conclusion sparked a mini-protest outside the White House (a NASA scientist was among those arrested), the report confirms the obvious: America needs Canadian oil, and the Keystone XL pipeline is the safest way to get it there. The project will also create thousands of jobs on both sides of the border—an economic benefit that, unlike the environmental fears, is very real.

Tweaking social networks

Facebook beefed up its privacy settings last week, giving its 300 million users more streamlined control over who gets to see their personal photos. Britain, meanwhile, dropped a controversial proposal that would have granted police the power to arbitrarily shut down social networking sites in times of crisis. (The short-lived plan came after rioters in England used Twitter and Facebook to coordinate their mayhem.) Taken together, the decisions strike a fine but necessary balance in this age of tweets and pokes. Privacy is a right, but so is free speech.

Continue…

Anonymous morphs into a political movement

By Cigdem Iltan - Tuesday, August 23, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

Reuters/Lisi Niesner

Gone, for Anonymous, are the days of aimless Internet hijinks. The hacker group, once a loosely knit group of cyber-pranksters that formed in 2003, has traded prank pizza deliveries and shock humour for high-profile attacks on authoritarian regimes. The community now attracts both political activists and hackers alike to campaigns targeting everyone from Arab dictatorships to opponents of WikiLeaks.

Last week, Anonymous carried out its latest offensive on an Arab government, when hackers swapped content on the Syrian Ministry of Defence website with a message calling on protesters to take down President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which has killed an estimated 1,700 citizens since uprisings began five months ago. In June, the group claimed responsibility for revealing the passwords of hundreds of Bahraini, Egyptian, Moroccan and Jordanian government officials’ email accounts. And during the early stirrings of the Tunisian revolution in January, Anons (as the group’s adherents are known) created care packages that included instructions on how to conceal identities online and developed a script to help bloggers and news sources dodge a government-led phishing campaign. “It is simply impossible to list all countries that need help,” the maturing collective proclaimed on the @AnonymousIRC Twitter account on Aug. 9. “We try our best.”

Other recent targets include businesses that withdrew their services from WikiLeaks when, in December, the organization released secret diplomatic cables, and the Orlando, Fla., Chamber of Commerce, after members of the group Food Not Bombs were arrested for feeding the city’s homeless, against local laws. But the clandestine computer hacking group wasn’t always so interested in altruism. While Anons have maintained that their work is ultimately motivated by freedom of speech and anti-censorship ideals, it grew out of the notorious 4Chan message boards: an Internet repository for lolcats, anime and multiple genres of porn.

Continue…

Why people can’t help themselves

By Andrew Potter - Friday, August 19, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 29 Comments

Jess Hurd/Report Digital/ Redux

Anyone who has ever taken part in a riot, or even just hovered on the periphery of one, knows how exhilarating it can be. Windows smashed, cars torched, stores looted—it’s like being in the middle of a video game. Yet there is a tendency to try to psychoanalyze society and interpret the mob’s behaviour as a symptom of some great underlying malaise: hockey’s culture of macho violence in the case of June’s riot in Vancouver, racism or poverty or the welfare state in the case of the looting that hopscotched across England last week.

People are over-thinking things way too much. Any proper discussion of a riot and why it happens has to start with the recognition that rioting, especially for young men, is a huge amount of fun. At any given moment, there are far more people willing to riot and loot than we like to admit, and the only reason there isn’t more of it is that if you do it by yourself or in a small group, you’ll almost certainly get caught. But if you can get enough people to riot, you can all get away with it, which is why when it comes to getting one started, what the participants are faced with is essentially a coordination problem. The trick is getting a critical mass of people willing to do it, in the same place and at the same time.

Certain events, like game seven of the Stanley Cup final, have become reliable opportunities to riot—a bunch of people show up precisely because they know that a lot of other people will also be showing up to riot. Another reliable opportunity is any sort of anti-authority protest, such as a meeting of the G20 or—what sparked the events in Tottenham—a demonstration against police violence. No matter how peaceful the initial gathering is meant to be, it is easily overwhelmed by those who are there just to smash stuff.
Continue…

Tweets v. Ideas

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 9:49 AM - 9 Comments

Neal Gabler sketches the demise of ideas.

To paraphrase the famous dictum, often attributed to Yogi Berra, that you can’t think and hit at the same time, you can’t think and tweet at the same time either, not because it is impossible to multitask but because tweeting, which is largely a burst of either brief, unsupported opinions or brief descriptions of your own prosaic activities, is a form of distraction or anti-thinking.

The implications of a society that no longer thinks big are enormous. Ideas aren’t just intellectual playthings. They have practical effects.

Continue…

London’s long, hot summer

By Leah McLaren and Patricia Treble - Sunday, August 14, 2011 at 6:30 PM - 4 Comments

Reuters/Luke MacGregor

What began as a peaceful public vigil outside a north London police station last Saturday rapidly morphed into several days of rampaging protests—a frightening flashpoint in a season of increasing unrest in the British capital. By midday Monday, more than 200 protesters had been arrested in skirmishes that left scores of officers injured and several down-at-heel neighbourhoods severely damaged by fire and theft. And there was no end in sight. By Monday evening, riot police were busy in Oxford Circus, and BBC commentators were advising Londoners to stay indoors—meanwhile, violence had erupted in Birmingham, Liverpool and other large cities.

How did it all start? The initial protest in Tottenham, a socio-economically depressed and ethnically mixed district in the city’s north end, was organized in response to the shooting earlier last week of Mark Duggan. The local man lived in a nearby housing project and was, depending on which sources you believe, either a peace-loving family man or an active gang member. There are reports that he was carrying a weapon, allegedly a starter’s pistol converted to fire live ammunition; Duggan’s death came after a minicab he was in was stopped during a pre-planned police operation.

What’s inarguable is that police were involved in the shooting, though it’s still not known who actually killed Duggan. Why the protest turned violent is similarly murky: at least one witness claimed it all began when a 16-year-old girl was viciously attacked after throwing a champagne bottle at officers, yet others blamed unsubstantiated rumours circulated on Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger claiming that Duggan was murdered in an unprovoked, execution-style shooting.

Continue…

Hugo’s government-by-Twitter

By Richard Warnica - Tuesday, August 9, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Reuters

During a recent stay in Cuba, Hugo Chávez took to Twitter to stay in touch with his people. The president of Venezuela has cancer and was in Havana to have a tumour removed, but he took time out to tweet to his more than 1.8 million followers. “We’re moving along here, brother! With God and the Virgin!” read one post, according to a translation by the Associated Press. “In my modest opinion…THEY ROBBED US OF THE VICTORY GOAL,” said another, a reference to a soccer match between his country and Paraguay.

Chávez’s Twitter campaign earned wry headlines abroad. But back home, it was his choice of medical locale that was causing a stir. The Venezuelan health system has been a shambles for decades; under Chávez, opponents say, things have grown dramatically worse. By seeking treatment abroad, critics charge, Chávez has tacitly acknowledged that the Venezuelan system is not up to snuff. What does the president think? At this point, he has yet to express himself on the issue, on Twitter or anywhere else.

‘I think the controversy has created a good teaching moment’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 3:17 PM - 29 Comments

Elizabeth May explains, at length, her feelings about electromagnetic radiation.

When I was first attacked and lambasted for expressing concern about various forms of pollution and human health, I was young and the attackers were brutal.  I was worried about things like Agent Orange.  Health Canada wasn’t.  I was concerned about lead in gas, but it was hard to get the government to act.  I worked to get certain pesticides banned, but they were “safe” right up to the day they were banned … There is no scientific consensus on EMF and health. But, it is equally not possible to make the claims many of Twitter have made today that Wi-Fi and cell phones are all proven “safe.”

Jonathan Kay notes that one of Ms. May’s wifi-related tweets yesterday was sent from her BlackBerry. Relatedly, Mike Moffatt takes the Green Party to task for its position on smart meters.

Celeb-onomics

By Erica Alini - Monday, July 11, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images, ISTOCK; Photo Illustration by Lauren Cattermole

Want to get people to pay attention to that driest of issues: monetary policy? Get a Hollywood celebrity to tweet about it. Better still, one whose resumé includes rehab, house arrest and an alcohol-monitoring ankle bracelet. That’s what the National Inflation Association, an organization that describes itself as “preparing Americans for hyperinflation,” did last week. It paid Lindsay Lohan to slam the Federal Reserve on her Twitter account. It read: “Have you guys seen food and gas prices lately? U.S. $ will soon be worthless if the Fed keeps printing money!” The tweet, initially attributed to Lohan herself, quickly made the rounds in gossip, mainstream and business media. It may have helped focus minds on macroeconomics (albeit briefly), but the tweet did little to improve Lohan’s image, after reporters pointed out that the NIA’s main aim appears to be pitching investors on penny stocks and that the group is not the conservative non-profit the starlet said she believed it to be.

The people and the press

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 3:52 PM - 21 Comments

The Boston Globe compares what Barack Obama was asked about during yesterday’s Twitter town hall with what journalists asked during the last two weeks of White House press briefings.

A similar experiment here would likely produce similar results: comparing, for instance, what Michael Ignatieff was asked about during his various town halls with what the departed Liberal leader was asked about during scrums would probably find the same disconnect.

You could theorize all sorts of reasons to explain that disconnect, but it is perhaps worth wondering whether something should be done to shrink the gap.

From the American standpoint, Matthew Yglesias sees the “leading failure of the press”

Fake Kate has a real following on Twitter

By Rosemary Counter - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

On May 18th, @DuchessKateM published her first tweet. “Thanks for this Sweet Welcome. It’s my Official Twitter and I’m really happy to be here with you,” she wrote. Just five days later, @DukeWilliam1 was appeared on the social media site. Before long, @middletonpippa was talking fashion (“Green Dress for you? xx”) and @PrinceHarryofW was missing his mum. It’s a rare occurrence to see royal reality as such, and like most reality entertainment, it’s fake.

But like the so-called Duchess’ more than 13,000 other followers, I don’t care. For weeks I’d been enthusiastically following the (unofficial) “Real Twitter Account of The Duchess Catherine Elizabeth Middleton” and hanging off every tweet: “I really love the royal family. It’s a really good family” or “Thanks for Visit UK @BarackObama!” I even eavesdropped on a royal birthday wish to her handsome hubby (“Happy Birthday to my Husband !! You are the best of my life !! Our first birthday together after the wedding !! I Love you, Catherine xx”). Avid voyeurs rejoiced.

It’s a far cry and welcome relief from how we usually see royalty. “With the monarchy, it’s official this and official that,” says Tom Vassos, social media expert at the University of Toronto. “But people want more than that, people want the personal touch, and someone will provide it.”

Enter the many online incarnations of Catherine Middleton: Continue…

Stephen Harper and Katy Perry?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 4, 2011 at 4:55 PM - 10 Comments

Stephen Harper and Katy Perry. And a giant purple cat.

This is the week that was

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, June 18, 2011 at 1:17 PM - 12 Comments

The House debated Libya and the meaning of regime change. The opposition demanded to hear from the President of the Treasury Board. Charlie Angus mocked Tony Clement. Then mocked him again. And again.

Jack Layton took his place in Twitter history. A former Liberal MP worried that Parliament wasn’t serving Canadians well. Ruth Ellen Brosseau was applauded. Elizabeth May dissented. Mr. Clement looked on the bright side and clarified what he meant by “anachronistic” and dismissed what he’d said about user fees. The ethics commissioner suggested a code of conduct for MPs. Peter Stoffer proposed a ban on floor crossing. The youngest MP in history made his maiden remarks. Continue…

The daily shaming

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 4:09 PM - 11 Comments

Charlie Angus’ two questions in QP this morning, neither of which convinced Tony Clement to stand and respond.

Mr. Speaker, a minister of the Crown has an obligation to treat taxpayers with respect and be accountable to Parliament. The President of the Treasury Board has failed miserably on both counts, because since the Auditor General’s report, he has been hiding under the desk of the foreign affairs minister. Since he cannot seem to stand up in this House and apologize for his out-of-control booty run through the backwoods of Muskoka, I will keep it simple: go to the Twittersphere, 140 characters or less, hashtag, I am sorry, Canada.

Mr. Speaker, there are 150-plus Conservatives sitting behind the Treasury Board minister, I am sure all of them would love to siphon taxpayers’ dollars off for their own personal pork barrel projects. That is why we have rules. That is why we have Treasury Board. What message is the government sending by putting him in charge of Treasury Board, that it is open season on the taxpayers’ trust? Otherwise, why would the Prime Minister put the Muskoka fox in charge of the taxpayers’ henhouse?