The question had been raised before: What if Facebook, struggling with the global “fake news” problem, just threw up its Like hands and de-prioritised news altogether? In the dawn of 2018, it doesn’t seem as far fetched anymore. Mark Zuckerberg’s goal for the new year (joining previous annual goals of visiting all 50 U.S. states, […]
The more spontaneous interactions a president has, the greater the chances for the dreaded gaffe, which is why the president’s Twitter feed has been known to cause heartburn among U.S. national-security professionals. Trump relies not just on national-security and media-relations teams to craft anodyne public statements, but also on his ability to communicate directly with […]
Donald Trump’s first year in office seems to have been marked, above all, by his verbal incontinence. America’s tweeter-in-chief kept several continents rapt with his early-morning offerings. In his lack of inhibition and tact, Trump is the opposite of Barack Obama. At the same time, Obama’s decorum managed to conceal many unpleasant realities, which we would […]
President Donald Trump prides himself on being able to communicate with the American people directly through his Twitter account, but when it comes to resonating on that platform, former President Barack Obama still had an edge in 2017. Three of Obama’s tweets were among the 10 most retweeted this year, while none of Trump’s made the list, […]
Increasingly, Facebook is finding itself in an impossible position as it tries to remain, in spirit at least, a content-agnostic platform that allows everyone to have a voice. Sometimes the company faces scrutiny when it allows certain content to remain, as in the case of fake news or neo-Nazi propaganda. Other times it faces scrutiny for […]
The wider world has largely forgotten that short border clash 55 years ago, playing out as it did in the shadows of the more momentous Cuban missile crisis at the peak of the cold war. But in this part of the world, the ghost of that war still lurks – it is the key to […]
…Trump’s lies don’t look like a 12-dimensional-chess framework designed to serve some greater good. He looks like he’s trying to dominate his perceived enemies, to humiliate people, to cast himself in what he thinks is a good light. When Trump says something that contradicts something else he’s said, he doesn’t seem to notice or care. […]
It’s no coincidence this evolution has coincided with the rise of social media. The only thing that can accelerate a topic online better than outrage is humour—combine the two and you have a potent tool for reaching millions. (Hell, even protest signs—“We shall overcomb”—spawn top-10 lists.) Read Here – Wired
Trump’s use of Twitter isn’t the victory of the poor underdog over the wealthy elite that can access traditional broadcast and print channels: on the contrary, we’ve never seen a politician with the kind of media access and exposure Trump has enjoyed. Twitter hasn’t been Trump’s route to breaking free of media gate-keeping; it’s been […]
President Obama has been called the “first social-media president.” It’s both a true and a misleading characterisation. On the one hand, the Obama White House was indeed the first presidency to make use of services like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. But on the other hand, these services either didn’t exist or weren’t used by […]
looking beyond borders 