For those who have been paying attention, it’s now pretty clear that something named Nick Clegg is causing that humming sound that can now be heard around Blighty. Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party has rocketed to a rather strange position in the UK election – that is, first. Sort of.
After his performance in the first ever leaders debate where he worked his outsider, third party, afterthought status to a distinct advantage, the UK press – not to mention everyone else – has been preoccupied with the charismatic Clegg. Not surprisingly, his message of a change from the usual Labour/Tory dichotomy drew comparisons to Barack Obama, no doubt to the annoyance of both incumbent Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron, both of whom had already attempted to channel Obama in the run-up to this election. But it was, after all, Clegg who had meetings with Democrat election brain Howard Dean. continue »
Back in November, I talked to Meredith Carey of the Chicago Underground Library about their efforts to collect and archive as much of the city’s small press media as possible, and we couldn’t avoid the very real problem posed by the internet: that it is a home to everything and, potentially, nothing at the same time. In other words, all kinds of information is available online, but only part of it will ever be saved in a way that would be accessible in the future for historians or the average curious user. As Carey put it:
“What do [blogs] become after we have several decades of the internet under our belts? Kind of an infinite dead letter office, but a public one, but so many of the things in it completely forgotten by anybody at all. So what is it?”
Now that the Library of Congress has decided to store the complete Twitter archives – that is, every tweet ever tweeted, starting six months from now – that question might be a bit easier to answer. At least in the future there will be some record of part of the online experience, open to access by historians who are curious about the day-to-day ramblings of anyone from a movie star to your local Starbucks barista. continue »
British Conservative leader David Cameron spoke to a group of students today at Cornwall College Saltash during his election campaign. One of the students apparently didn’t like what he heard, so he – very blatantly – threw an egg at Cameron as he left the building.
Video:
Cameron wasn’t injured in the incident, as the egg glanced off his shoulder, mostly hitting a police officer next to him. Yesterday, Cameron had been stalked by a man dressed as a giant chicken.
You wouldn’t know it by walking most Canadian streets in the last few months, but there is a rather serious constitutional debate raging in Ottawa that might change the parliamentary system as it’s known not to only Canadians, but to many others around the world. One of the more interesting asterisks on the on-going debate over whether detainees were handed over to Afghan officials by Canadian soldiers with full knowledge that they would be tortured, is the debate over parliamentary procedure, and who – the House or the Prime Minister – wields more power. continue »
I’ve discussed the tone of online comments a bit before, and we’re all very well aware of how acerbic and vitriolic they can be. Now, in Nova Scotia, two firefighters are putting the anonymity of online comments to the test. Halifax Fire Chief Bill Mosher and deputy chief Stephen Thurber felt that they were defamed in a comment thread on the Coast newspaper’s website, so they asked the Nova Scotia Supreme Court to force the Coast and Google to reveal the identity of their online assailants. The Court agreed.
A defamation suit is a fairly strong reaction to online comments, granted, but it raises the question of how not only to moderate comment threads, but how to possibly ensure that the level of discussion that takes place within them is slightly better. Is it even possible? continue »
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