To be specific, @thelamplatoon is the troublemaking party in question, and the headmaster is the multi-headed hydra of Twitter police who monitor for spam. During the VMAs on August 28th, we noticed on Twitter that a lot of people were tweeting about the latest Kia “Soul” commercial with hip-hop hamsters. It so happens that one of LAMPlatoon members made a video taking the hamsters to task as yet another milestone in the history of racist caricatures in youth-targeted animation:

And so, we wanted to start a dialogue with people who were talking about the most recent Kia hamster ad. Ultimately, @thelamplatoon contacted 65 Twitter users about the ad, asking what they thought about the idea that the ads may be offensive. As a result of our solicitations, Twitter suspended our account “for sending multiple unsolicited messages using the @reply and/or mention feature.”

Screenshot of @thelamplatoon tweets sent during the VMAs

Did we go overboard? Yep, and we regret it. There is no question that we were overzealous, and should have been more thoughtful.

Still, we have some questions regarding the clarity of Twitter policies. What number does Twitter mean when they say “multiple” and how are they differentiating between spam and conversation? We weren’t trying to sell anything–far from it. Perhaps ironically, we were trying to talk about potentially unethical marketing techniques, and only touched people who were already discussing the content in question. With an average of 1,350 unique tweets sent each minute, the number of tweets from @thelamplatoon over the course of five minutes make up a tiny fraction of the total number of tweets sent worldwide on a regular day. Plus, this was during the VMAs, when a record-breaking 8,868 tweets were sent each second. In that volume, how does Twitter determine that you’ve crossed a line? Does Twitter consider any kind of unsolicited outreach to be spam, and what does that mean for other activist campaigns working to address trending topics through Twitter?

Let’s be clear–we know we were wrong. Just because @thelamplatoon isn’t selling anything doesn’t mean it lacks the capacity to be annoying. We weren’t aware of the line between being annoying and being in violation of Twitter policy, because that line is not explicitly stated and Twitter offers no guidelines for what does and does not constitute spam. Any social media engine encouraging interactivity among users should clearly state acceptable and unacceptable behavior, especially when users have the ability contact others without their approval.

We learned the rules the hard way, with a slap on the wrist and a 20-day nap for @thelamplatoon. But we’re not the only ones with a lesson to learn.

Was this your cell phone ten years ago?

Recollections and thoughts on the pending 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks are everywhere. It’s hard to visit a website, open a newspaper or listen to the radio without hearing about that fateful day which forever changed the United States and, in some way, the lives of millions around the world. All of this reflection is cathartic, healing, binding, and, fairly natural for our time, a lot of it is being done with the help of social media. But ten years ago, we didn’t have social media. Our collective grieving process is largely dependent on media that looked very different in 2001–and many didn’t exist at all.

How would 9/11 have been different if we had social media? The question is partly a lazy game of What If, but also points to a reassessment of how and why we respond to disasters and tragedies in an era of media saturation. In 2001, we didn’t live in a society where cell phones were a given, and even laptops were pretty novel. Now, smartphones are everywhere, making it easy to snap photos, video and audio and then post it all somewhere for the world to see. We tag photos on Flickr to make a crowd-sourced photo album, we can tell people we’re safe by updating a Facebook status, we can quickly spread both information and misinformation with Twitter. We get news and emergency alerts on our phones, GPS can help us locate someone, and you don’t need to paper a wall in Greenwich Village seeking information on missing persons. And then, we can easily support rescue and recovery efforts just by making a donation via text message, grieve together with online memorial spaces, and much more.

In contrast, when I was a college student at the University of Illinois back in 2001, I didn’t learn about what happened until at least an hour after the towers fell–and that was okay. I didn’t need to know everything instantly, as I feel I do now. For someone like me, who had never been to New York City or the Twin Towers, I was disconnected from the personal stories and the nature of the city. Today, how many thousands of faces, stories and voices would I have to choose from to help me understand 9/11 and the aftermath?

At the same time, I wonder what is lost by not knowing. In a way, I think that what happened inside the Towers, the Pentagon and the hijacked planes was something more complex than I could understand from an outside view, adding an air of sanctity to those experiences. Yet on the other hand, many remaining questions of what really happened should be answered, and, as we are reminded by recently released audio tapes, media can help.

I don’t know if the existence of more cell phone calls, texts, pictures or video would close the books on every 9/11 mystery or conspiracy theory, but based on how we react to news today, people would still be interested. Whether they would satisfy a voyeuristic curiosity, yield valuable information or do something else entirely will never be known. Of course I want answers about many things that happened that day, but, unlike ten years ago, there are some things I’m okay with not knowing.

–Emily Long
Follow The LAMP on Twitter: @thelampnyc
Follow me on Twitter: @emlong

Image from VeesVintage

Today Twitter turns 5. Hooray! Twitter, if you were a person, you would be going into first grade.

Twitter is a pretty amazing thing. It’s changed a lot about the way we get news, stay in touch with friends, obsess over celebrities, share opinions and a lot more. However, we’re sure that there are plenty of other people posting today about how great Twitter is and how we haven’t been the same since it was open to the commercial public in 2006. So today, to pay tribute to a true phenomenon of new media social networking, we’re taking a look back at where it all began with first tweets from just a few of our personal favorite and most (arguably) notable accounts. We weren’t able to find first tweets for everyone we wanted, but we dug up a decent sampling. Looks like our first missives to the Twitterverse can say a lot about us:

@mayoremanuel: fuck you right in your fucking face-hole. (September 27, 2010)

@aplusk: I really want to go to Iran. Every one that I meet that goes there says it’s amazing. http://bit.ly/8vjma (February 28, 2009)

@sarahpalinusa: Michigan-thx 4 Going Rogue! Perfect tour kickoff w/Kid Rock tune praising Northern MI humming in backgrnd @ Barnes/Noble. Above expectations (November 18, 2009)

@barackobama: Thinking we’re only one signature away from ending the war in Iraq. Learn more at http://www.barackobama.com (April 29, 2007)

@glennbeck: This is my first ‘tweet’. I’ll try to keep the lying about train travel to a minimum. (May 21, 2009)

@stephenathome: A well-made suit gives you the illusion of a physique. (September 17, 2008)

First tweets can actually be pretty tricky to find, so help us out by commenting with yours. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @thelampnyc.

Photo from Mediaite.com

I’m an animal lover, so when I learned that a peahen escaped from the Bronx Zoo, I was a little excited. Why? Because of the inevitable Twitter account!

The story goes that yesterday afternoon, the lady peacock was spotted on top of a van on Morris Park Avenue. Her handlers tried to catch her, and she flew off. Since Twitter handles are now considered standard issue for escaped Bronx Zoo animals, @BronxZooPeacock was born, and as of this writing has 3,457 followers (including me). This follows on the tail of the @BronxZooCobra phenomenon (242,215 followers), which also yielded @BronxZooHBadger (1,533 followers), who has updated his bio to note that he is now hunting for @BronxZooPeacock. (Yes, I know there are other honey badger Twitter accounts out there, but I think @BronxZooHBadger is the funniest.) Beyond the zoo, there’s @NYURedtailHawks (1,314 followers) for Bobby and Violet, the hawks living at New York University’s Bobst Library, who became parents on May 6 when one of their three eggs miraculously hatched a little later than expected. And on the domestic side, many people have Twitter accounts for their pets. One of my favorites is @boscolefever (136 followers), a growing puppy with a penchant for trouble, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my own cat, @arfurtaylor (5 followers).

All of these accounts are pretty much just for fun, but they interest me because I think they point to something larger: Twitter as a testing ground for writers. Every Twitter account has its own character and narrative, which are the same elements we often look for in the form of fiction, journalism, plays or poetry. Each tweet is a piece of a larger story, and not only do you get to craft it without any editorial oversight, but you can also gauge how interesting your writing is to other people, and learn how to take and hold your reader’s attention. (There’s a marketing lesson in there too.) The reason only five people are interested in @arfurtaylor is because his feed was created as an inside joke, and doesn’t make much sense to people who don’t know him. @BronxZooCobra, somewhat ironically, wanted to be found online, and a lot of people were interested in the setup of a cobra touring New York City. Even though the actual cobra is now back at the reptile house and @BronxZooCobra is tweeting very infrequently, the Twitter account still has over 240,000 people interested in what happens next.

So, aspiring writers, go forth to Twitter! Teachers, try this in class! And the rest of you…keep exploring.

–Emily Long
Follow me on Twitter: @emlong

Unlike most fake Twitter accounts, nobody knew who was really behind the @MayorEmanuel tweets, and as any journalist will tell you, the anonymity of a source can be a great blessing and an awful hex all at the same time. For readers, the secrecy made the feed all the more compelling–you didn’t know if the R-rated writing was coming from a political enemy, a disgruntled staffer or a random person having fun by riffing on a very large character. Determining the identity of @MayorEmanuel became a kind of game, but one which was probably not very enjoyable for anyone who feared that the feed could offer too much distraction from the real Rahm Emanuel. The anonymity also posed a potential threat to Emanuel’s mayoral campaign–although after a few days, it must have been clear to everyone that @MayorEmanuel was not created with any real malicious intent. The tweets were simply too funny.

And yet, they were more than that. Frequently, they depicted Emanuel as the hungry, ball-busting jackass we’ve seen before, but at other times he was just a guy, sincerely in love with Chicago and truly believing that he was the right man, the only man, for the job. Near the end of days for @MayorEmanuel, this went a step further when @MayorEmanuel was sucked into a kind of time vortex and shown a second version of himself.

Yesterday, The Atlantic pulled back the curtain, and we learned that @MayorEmanuel is actually Dan Sinker, a recipient of the Knight Fellowship in Journalism at Stanford and professor of journalism at Columbia College in Chicago. He also founded Punk Planet, a punk zine which closed in 2007, and started CellStories.net, a website distributing stories written exclusively for mobile devices. Now that we know the true identity of @MayorEmanuel, everything changes. Sinker is not only a beautiful writer and gifted storyteller, he is an avid explorer of mobile media and its role in a society where cell phones are nearly standard-issue. He didn’t have it in for Rahm Emanuel, and he wasn’t just messing around for the hell of it. He knew what he was doing.

Sinker’s experiment pushed the boundaries of the ways in which mobile media can be used to shape and influence public dialogue and the imagination, and he did so using Twitter, which does the same thing in a variety of ways. Twitter can be used as a news stream, a rumor mill, a confessional, a sounding board and now, as demonstrated by Sinker, a truly compelling vehicle for fictional narrative. Most tweets are like lines of a novel, which taken together create a story about the life of the feed’s author. Before yesterday, @MayorEmanuel had a character, but not an identity. Now it has both, and thus the story is complete.

–Emily Long
Speaking of Twitter, you can find me there too: http://www.twitter.com/emlong

To tweet is essentially to make public what would otherwise be considered private information. While some use Twitter to comment on a particular topic, share jokes, quotes or random insights, many Twitter users take the site’s prompt quite literally and share, with varying degrees of specificity, “what’s happening” in their lives.

The Twitter homepage includes a link titled “Privacy” which explains, in short, that if privacy is what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the wrong place. Fair enough, and indeed, rather obvious. Twitter is perhaps the least restrained and least complicated social media outlet. What you see is what you get. Even when we know that to be true, it’s easy to get comfortable—particularly if you use Twitter from a phone, and frequently. This, however, can lead to compromising the safety of personal information beyond what even the most loose-lipped Twitterer may have intended.

Many people who post their photos online are just becoming aware that a photo can contain information about where it was taken. Technology writer Kate Murphy addressed the issue of the geotagged photograph in the August 12th edition of The New York Times. In the article, Murphy explains how the default setting for devices that are GPS enabled is to attach longitude and latitude coordinates to any photo taken with that same device. This information does not show when the photo is uploaded or shared, but on many websites that data remains available to anyone willing to apply the very simple (and free) browser add-on technology it takes to locate the photo’s subject. According to The Times, Facebook does not upload such data and Flickr is working to disable geotagged photographs. Twitter is not the only site where photos containing geotags can be posted, but it does present a particular risk when photos are often accompanied by additionally compromising and up-to-the-minute information such as “Leaving my house” or “Out at dinner.”

It seems unlikely to me that I would be stalked. Anyone looking to break into my house would be seriously disappointed. Nevertheless, this particular privacy matter is a good reminder to double-check what I put online. For me, that means asking myself if what I share online is something I would be comfortable saying aloud in a crowded subway car. While others may have a more liberal take on what can be safely posted, everyone should have a line that cannot be crossed when it comes to maintaining privacy (and managing a public identity) on the web.

Fortunately, it is possible to disable the geotag setting on your smartphone or PDA. Still, doing so reminds me that if the information I post to the internet conceivably compromises my safety or the safety of people I care about, it probably isn’t worth it.

–Sarah Brown

Except, they’ve been there for a long time by now. Not only can any user tweet to their heart’s content about the wonder of a product, but there are a number of services like Twittertise, AdCause, TwittAd, SponsoredTweets, reTweet.it and BeTweeted which exist to promote the practice of being paid to tweet. There are already a lot of ads of Twitter that many people don’t even realize are ads; back in December, fans of Kim Kardashian were shocked to learn that her odes to things like Reebok EasyTones were less than genuine. She gets paid by ad.ly up to $10,000 to tweet about certain products, as do other celebrities like Soulja Boy, Dr. Drew and Lauren Conrad.

With no further details released by the company, all the announcement really means is that soon there will be something created internally by Twitter which will enable advertising. It is unclear what exactly the platform will do or how it will function, but (as reported by MediaPost) Banerji did say that Twitter will make it “explicitly clear that a sponsor” paid for the ad, which will be “relevant and useful, so the doesn’t think of it as an ad.” What? How can an ad be both explicit about the fact that it is an ad, and yet not be thought of as an ad? This sounds like more of the incognito advertising happening every day, unbeknownst to most people on Twitter. (Never mind that Banerji also said, “Innovate very, very quickly, before someone innovates on top of you.” Really, who hasn’t been innovating on top of Twitter?) The company does need to monetize, but they may have missed the boat on doing it with ads.

With ever more ad platforms being built, consumers seem to have never considered that a celebrity might be paid for an endorsement, and even television channels are being created as a result of advertising demand, it is clear that more attention needs to be paid to media literacy. Advertising is not going away, and it is not inherently a bad thing, but it is important for people to know when they are being coaxed into buying something.

–Emily Long

Reports that arrived immediately following the announcement of Jackson’s death flooded the airwaves (that term’s still relevant when referring to TV and the Internet together, right?). It was in fact via Twitter that we here at the LAMP first learned of this occurrence. It didn’t take long before these reports started to dissect this newly deceased man’s life, pulling up stories, images and videos of his various missteps and malfunctions off the stage. Somehow this was appropriate to mourning the loss of one of the biggest impacts in the last quarter century on our global culture – both entertainment-wise as well as with regards to humanitarian efforts. The public debate became one about his legacy – how it should be framed and what should be its content.

What now emerges, just as the wicks in the mourning candles lit last night in remembrance of this man start to cool, is another debate. What damage is news coverage of his passing doing to other important stories? Is his death newsworthy? In the wake of the protests in Iran, does the sidetracking of the focus the Western media had put on the uprisings harm the cause of the protesters (this of course presumes that media coverage in the West has helped the protesters and not hurt them)?

We do not take a particular position on this matter. Frankly, we’re delighted that people are even debating what is newsworthy and what isn’t. It speaks to a much more prevalent media literacy that exists, and it doesn’t escape our notice that the same media folks are choosing to participate in this polemic (social networks, Twitter) are the same ones that informed us of these current events to begin with.

On Friday, general elections for Iranian President took place. Shortly after,  incumbent President Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, defeating his rival Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The reaction worldwide was astonishment and shock, but none more outraged than those within Iran’s borders. Gradually, demonstrations began to assemble on the streets of Tehran, growing in intensity, despite the threats of armed response from the government. Coinciding with these brave protesters, another demonstration has emerged on Twitter. Thousands of people are spreading information, links, pictures and other words of encouragement all with the hash tag of #iranelection, which means when you perform a Twitter search on that term, you can witness the constant stream of tweets it chains together. I encourage you to spend a few minutes reading through the long list of updates. It’s pretty incredible. You see hundreds and perhaps thousands of folks around the world using this “useless” medium to voice their support for those Iranians gathering to demand their voices heard and their votes counted.

While monitoring the events that are unfolding on Twitter (and on some other sites as well), several things occurred to me. Numerous messages are being forwarded about actions by the Iranian Government:

“They’re cutting off all connections now, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger Twitter..”

“CONFIRMED!! Army moving into Tehran against protesters! PLEASE RT! URGENT!”

While monitoring this stream, I’ve encountered these repeated over and over by folks who probably have the kindest of intentions, but how do they possibly know that what they are spreading is accurate information? There have been several photos posted via TwitPic that depict some gruesome scenes, but again, how are we certain these photos are coming from these harrowing events? Another item was posted several times in Twitter that the BBC’s website had changed it’s colors to green in order to show solidarity with Mousavi’s supporters (“2mw: rt@omasciandaro: The BBC web site just went green in support of Iraninan opposition. Small gesture, huge message. Go green! #iranelection“). However, this isn’t true. The BBC’s website has been these colors for a long while.

We asked several questions on Twitter about this subject:

-How many of you are following #iranelection? How many of those tweets w/that label can you trust? What % need to be dismissed? % heeded?

-Twitter + #iranelection = first Internet uprising? http://bit.ly/ZQYDc But who’s in command? Are there guiding principles?

-How do you trust the “factual” ones? are those twitpics really pics of #iranelection? Who’s factchecking?

While this is by no means a statistically significant sampling, the only responses we got to our questions were of the nature that factchecking, guidance and critical analysis weren’t important to what was being attempted through Twitter. This response brings up a whole bunch of other questions: What constitutes an uprising? Do these well-intentioned folks really understand Iranian politics and the positions Mousavi held in the election?

Maybe we’re seeing the first Internet uprising, and perhaps other uprisings also dealt with this amount of misinformation being disseminated, but one thing is for sure: Twitter is more than just telling others about the chili cheese dog you had for lunch.

What Cole W. Camplese, the instructor of a group of Penn State graduate students,  is thinking is that students need to engage.  We’re all trying to figure out what the onslaught of digital communication, and social networking in particular, means for our everyday living.  Those of us who spend many classroom hours with young adults know that digital media are changing our students who use them all the time.  We can’t expect to reach them the same way we did even a decade ago.   Clearly, the old education models aren’t always working, and inevitably are changing because of digital media.  I give credit to professors on the forefront of experimentation in the classroom with the tools of discourse that  students are engaging in outside the classroom.  

True, it’s hard to imagine how a focused discussion or imparting of information can take place when everyone in the class is sending quick bursts of thought in short text messages via their phones or laptops.  Obviously, what Professor  Camplese wants is for students to comment on the materials being covered, not writing about things personal or irrelevant to the class topic at hand.   But the technicalities of making the running stream of tweets available on screen for all to see, and analyze, throughout the class period bring difficulties: in setting up and in managing the stream throughout a fixed period of time.  How can so many things happen at once?  Will students actually be learning anything worthwhile?

Though this seems odd and certainly unprecedented, I admire Camplese’s approach.  After all, engaged students are happier, more attentive and more apt to learn. And those in the classroom who are too shy to speak might not be too shy to tweet.  Imagine if all of the students were building on each other’s ideas and comments–then had a recorded stream of their comments to look back on in subsequent class periods?  This could be a new model for classroom engagement.  Or it could be a huge bust.  Regardless, it’s worth a try.

Last Friday, April 3, I gave a workshop at the day-long Northeast Media Literacy Conference at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.  Near the end of our workshop, which I called “Media Literacy is Medium Literacy,” participants and I engaged in a discussion about the gap between generations when it comes to using digital media for social networking.  They, like I, grumbled loudly about Twitter.   Yet despite my personal feelings about tweeting, I told them, I can appreciate it as a form of communication highly valued by some.  I can be personally uninterested, even somewhat annoyed, but professionally interested in the means and uses of this form of contact.  We agreed, by the end of our discussion, that it’s best to try to understand technologies and services like Twitter because there’s no going back.  And the ways in which digital communication will (and has already) change learning and education requires new ways for teachers to think about their role in the whole educational process.  That is something I find very interesting.

It’s a time of experimentation, of open-mindedness, and of skepticism.  Ask any professor — it’s always a good time for skepticism.  But we shouldn’t let it get in the way of our open-mindedness.

If I get my technical act together I may try it in the classroom next fall.  But don’t–ever– expect me to tweet about my mundane personal stuff.  Not even I care about some of it.  

–Katherine G. Fry