From Emanuele: Veritasium takes a break from his wonderful science videos to dig into the realities of Facebook “likes.” Finally, someone provides insight into ever declining user engagement with Facebook. Is this the somber sound of a social network death knell?
OWS Launches Newsletter
From the OWS News Team: Introducing OWSnews.org – News of, by and for the 99%
OWSnews.org is being launched by journalists and organizers at New York”s Liberty Park occupation and over 20 other occupied locations throughout the US. This service is specifically dedicated to aggregating and producing news reports on the OWS 99% Movement. Our website also features many social networking capabilities which allow registered users to create their own profile, share ideas and easily communicate with many other journalists and OWS activists. You can be one of the first people to join this network by creating your own profile and contributing to the site by registering here: OWSnews.org/register.
Before jumping into our first newsletter, we would like to bring your attention to a voting feature that is present on all of our news reports. It is a Reddit-style function which allows people to vote reports up or down. Moving forward, we will use this voting process as an online General Assembly editor to determine which news reports will get featured on the homepage. Once you are registered for the site, please vote up the reports that you like.
As we are currently coordinating and developing an editorial process with over 1000 occupations throughout the US and internationally, we thought it would be appropriate to launch by honoring and featuring some of the journalists that have spent years dedicated to investigating and exposing the crimes of Wall Street. We have an amazing list of contributors, including Amy Goodman, Eugene Jarecki, Glen Ford, Bill Black, Dylan Ratigan, David DeGraw, Kevin Zeese, Adbusters, Nomi Prins, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Matt Taibbi, Mark Ruffalo, Cornel West, Naomi Wolf and more…
Flash Mobsters
For flash mobsters, crowd size a tempting cover
by Eric Tucker and Thomas Watkins
AP
August 9, 2011
The July 4 fireworks display in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights was anything but a family affair.
As many as 1,000 teenagers, mobilized through social networking sites, turned out and soon started fighting and disrupting the event.
Thanks to social networks like Twitter and Facebook, more and more so-called flash mobs are materializing across the globe, leaving police scrambling to keep tabs on the spontaneous assemblies.
“They’re gathering with an intent behind it – not just to enjoy the event,” Shaker Heights Police Chief D. Scott Lee said. “All too often, some of the intent is malicious.”
Flash mobs started off in 2003 as peaceful and often humorous acts of public performance, such as mass dance routines or street pillow fights. But in recent years, the term has taken a darker twist as criminals exploit the anonymity of crowds, using social networking to coordinate everything from robberies to fights to general chaos. Continue reading “Flash Mobsters”
GE Returns Billions to Public… NOT
Submitted by Carl Gibson of US Uncut:
GE Returns Billions to Public… NOT
April 13, 2011
USA Today, AP fall for US Uncut ploy; GE stock loses billions
Washington, DC – US Uncut, a burgeoning grassroots movement pressuring corporate tax cheats to pay their fair share, posted today a fake GE press release announcing that they would return their illegitimate (but legal) $3.2 billion tax refund, and that they would lobby to close the sort of corporate tax loopholes that had allowed them to skip taxes in the first place. Several major media outlets, including USA Today, ran the story as true. (Here is a link to the original USA Today story; here is the first article debunking the release.)
US Uncut quickly reacted with another release pretending to praise GE for this entirely unpredictable, unlikely, and in fact impossible act.
“This action showed us how the world could work,” said US Uncut spokesperson Carl Gibson. “For a brief moment people believed that the biggest corporate tax dodger had a change of heart and actually did the right thing. But the only way anything like this is really going to happen is if we change the laws that allow corporate tax avoidance in the first place.”
In the period the hoax was believed, GE’s stock plunged by .6% (far more than the value of the supposed return), then quickly recovered as soon as it became apparent the press had been duped. “Obviously, GE can’t possibly be expected to do the right thing voluntarily; their stock would keep plunging,” noted Gibson. “That’s why we must change the law.” Continue reading “GE Returns Billions to Public… NOT”