web2.0

Nordic Countries ask Facebook about privacy law

Norway has a longish tradition of questioning whether Facebook is in compliance with national integrity legislation. Way back in December 2009 I wrote (in Swedish) about the Norwegian Consumer Agencies early attempts to analyze Facebook’s relationship to privacy legislation. I was subsequently quoted on a t-shirt by the consumer agency!

Now the Data Protection Agencies of the Nordic countries have put together a list of questions to Facebook. The questions deal with the way in which the company complies with integrity legislation. The questions were sent from the Norwegian Data Protection Agency (Datatilsynet) but the questions are a collaboration from the agencies of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland and Åland. Read the questions sent to Facebook.

There is also an interesting background report from the Datatilsynet: Social Network Services and Privacy: A case study of Facebook by Atle Årnes, Jørgen Skorstad and Lars-Henrik Paarup Michelsen (15.04.2011). There is also the press release from Datatilsynet (in Norwegian).

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The appearance of justice

Just today I was asked by the media about the effects of social media on the courts. The reason why I was asked for my opinion was the notorious Casey Anthony case. The basics were that Casey Anthony’s two year old child Caylee goes missing but the mother does not report this for 31 days. The rest is stranger than any drama writers creation: the mother is shown to be a incredible liar, dancing and happy, even getting a tattoo with the words “Dolce Vita”. The grandfather is accused of incest, the police boyfriend lies to the police and social media is mined for any and all evidence that can be found.

For the last three years Casey Anthony has been waiting for her trail while the world has been discussing every fact and fiction related to the case. The story begins with the media and then is picked up on various social media channels.  The professionals work on building a case and a defence. Social media even figures in the jury selection where Facebook accounts are mined to see if a presumptive jury member is good or bad.

The idea in this situation that you can find an impartial group of people in the middle of a media storm is an anachronism. There were serious questions of whether the jury would be affected by the popular opinions expounded in social and other media. The discussion reached fever pitch during the trial and when the jury left for their deliberations. And when the notification came that the jury were back #caseyanthony was trending on twitter. The verdict was unexpected by the media. Not guilty of all charges but lying to the police. The rage on twitter was incredible. The verdict was that the prosecutor was unable to prove Casey Anthony’s involvement in murder or child abuse.

Even earlier there were comparisons between the O.J. Simpson case but here was a major difference – those who were angry during the Simpson case could only scream at the TV with twitter the screams could be shared, discussed and amplified.

No matter which verdict the jury had presented the question of influence from social media hangs in the air. Even if the jury were not supposed to know anything – is it possible to be unaffected by the media storm?

The next problem is the question of what role social media should play in a court process. In Sweden we still prohibit cameras in the courts – this means that the public can twitter, blog, comment and link to external photographs – but not point a lens. The purpose of this is to protect the integrity of the court process but is this protection pointless considering the prevalence of social media? Should we therefore allow cameras or prohibit social media devices in the courtroom?

A final problem is the appearance of justice. Lord Hewart is the origin of the adage “Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.” This poses a problem: the courts are concerned with justice but what happens when the society outside the courthouse demands a verdict that the courts are unable to deliver? What is apparent from reading twitter is that the demands for justice (or blood?) from the virtual mob have hardly been met.

Articles of Interest: Emily M. Janoski-Haehlen The Courts are all a‘Twitter’: The Implications of Social Media Use in the Courts New Media and the Courts: The current status and a look at the future A report of the New Media Committee of the Conference of Court Public Information Officers Michael Bromby The Temptation to Tweet – Jurors’ Activities Outside the Trial

Interesting articles:

Emily M. Janoski-Haehlen The Courts are all a‘Twitter’: The Implications of Social Media Use in the Courts

New Media and the Courts: The current status and a look at the future
A report of the New Media Committee of the Conference of Court Public Information Officers

Michael Bromby The Temptation to Tweet – Jurors’ Activities Outside the Trial

 

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Social media and academia: notes from a lecture

Today I held a lecture (in Swedish) about the potential of social media for academic researchers. It had the silly subtitle: Can Facebook make you a better researcher?

To set the scene the lecture began with a quote from Plato’s Republic (1982, p116) by Peter Medawar on what a scientist is:

“Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics.”

The purpose of the quote was to set the groundwork and remind the audience (all scientists) that we are all different in our motivation, inclinations and methods and therefore we need to find a common ground to be able to discuss what it is that we do.

This common ground is the actual organization within which all these diverse individuals carry out their activities: The university. I showed a timeline with the establishment of the University of Bologna in 1088, University of Paris 1150, a charter of academic freedom (Constitutio Habita) in 1155, University of Cambridge (1209), University of Salamanca (1218), University of Uppsala (1477) and University of Lund (1666).

In addition to this I reminded the audience that the enlightenment project began in c:a 1650 and that the first purely scientific journal the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society commenced in 1665.

The point of all this was to set the stage for the fact that the topic of my talk was how a recent technology is affecting a well-established system. The Internet (ArpaNet) was connected in 1969 and the World Wide Web in 1991. The technological infrastructure of my talk is just ten years old.

So why should a system that has worked for 1000 years care about this new, new thing?

To answer this I pointed out that all systems have within them flaws. No matter how well a system works it carries within it the negatives as well as the positives. So in order to be an improvement the new systems must negate the flaws while maintaining the positives.

To exemplify inherent flaws I talked about affordances and showed an example of anti-homeless technology. Anti-homeless technology turns regulation of society into technology and removes the need for democratic process. I showed the flaws of printed works with the Wicked Bible of 1631 – where a small error in the printing changed one of the ten commandments into: Thou shalt commit adultery. And an example of the dangers of trusting authority by discussing the Sokal Affair. Here I used a quote from Alan Sokal’s discussion of what he had done in his infamous article “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” (Social Text Spring/Summer 1996)

The fundamental silliness of my article lies… in the dubiousness of its central thesis and of the “reasoning” adduced to support it. Basically, I claim that quantum gravity… has profound political implications… Finally, I jump (again without argument) to the assertion that “postmodern science” has abolished the concept of objective reality. Nowhere in all of this is there anything resembling a logical sequence of thought; one finds only citations of authority, plays on words, strained analogies, and bald assertions. (Alan Sokal “A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies“ Lingua Franca 1996).

Following this I returned to the promises made by the enlightenment project: freedom from dogma, evidence based studies, individual before authority, science before belief, freedoms of expression and democracy etc.

The problem with many of these great promises is that they were not made available to a wider audience. In part this may be because the wider audience is not ready for the promises but also because the communications infrastructure was in the hands of a smaller group. The latter could be due to monopolies, political control or limited popular knowledge but still the general public was largely outside the creation and dissemination of knowledge.

Technology began to ease these limitations and create a possibility for larger groups to participate. Indeed through the last centuries work in digitalization and connectivity and the cheapening of a multitude of personal devices the whole game plan has changed radically. I like to argue that in relation to many of the enlightenment promises the theoretically possible becomes the inevitable – for good and for bad.

Scientists and universities are now living in a world where the larger audience has the ability to connect and comment so how does this make individuals into better researchers?

Well in the lecture I focus on two aspects: communication and networks.

The ability, created by technology, for the researcher to communicate via blogs provides a potential. While many see the “new” technology as a waste of time – and many universities see little or no value in blogs – at least I have yet to come across a university that rewards its researchers for blogging (even though some pay lip-service to the act).

Therefore it is up to the individual – from his/her own perspective to find a reason for finding the activity rewarding. In order to demonstrate this I provided my reasons why academics should blog:

Practice: No matter how much you write you can always practice. Now writing papers is practice but papers demand a more rigorous approach. Get it wrong and the work is wasted (almost). Rejection makes it difficult to feel that the writing has been worthwhile so the writer tries very hard to fit in to the form set by the community. Blogging on the other hand – can be – freer. It provides an interesting arena for experimentation with the lighter, wilder, weirder ideas that research generates. Naturally you will be argued against but it is doubtful you will be shot down in the same ways as you are in a paper.

Marketing: Lets face it, not many people really read papers. Many are virtually unread. Getting a paper published can do little more than another line to the CV. Hardly the kind of thing that builds your reputation. And another thing we must face, researchers live in several marketplaces. We like to think of ourselves as living in pure (ivory towers of) research but in reality we are always in need of funding, collaboration and access. We are selling ourselves – it may not be pretty but it is difficult to deny.

Shorts: Blogging is amazing for pushing out small ideas. The stuff that you think you may eventually write about – if you ever get the time – but probably never will. An insightful blogpost is more useful to you and to the world than the half written notes in a forgotten corner of your harddrive.

Explaining yourself: As a newbie PhD student one of my professors always said that I should be able to explain the relevance of my research within 60 seconds, or the amount of time it took for a short elevator ride. The point being that most people are not interested and to be able to explain the relevance of what you do is vital. Blogging can help you practice and hone these skills.

Feedback: Too much academic feedback is stuck in the formalia. Making the writing fit the journal or community requirements. When you blog the people who do comment or argue with you demand that you stick to the point rather than the format. It can be brutal but it’s always valuable.

Community: As a researcher you become a nerd. And not in the (now) popular way. You are dealing with some really obscure shit. Getting out there and talking increases the chances of other nerds finding you and accepting you. This is important because you can never have too many friends.

Competitive edge: Blogging alone will not make you into a successful academic. But it will provide you with a competitive edge. Your work will be more widely known. Maybe even more widely read. Whatever happens no researcher loses on not being heard of.

Serendipity: Researchers became researchers because they love research. Its not a highly social skill set. We tend to stick around in libraries, labs or departments. Seriously simply by being online we increase the chances of happy occurrences that may improve our contacts, lives and research. Sure this is a very optimistic worldview but hoping for serendipity sure beats the alternative.

Varfor bry sig om social media?

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Post-Social Media

Yesterday I was in Borås at the Social Media Day which is an annual politics and social media conference (ppt slides and movies here). This year was opened by the US ambassador to Sweden Matthew Barzun, who gave an interesting talk (ppt) (much of it in Swedish, which was impressive). He spoke about the promise of technology and the difficulty of predicting the future and the importance of values in developing and using technology.

He also told the story of the Swedish engineer Laila Ohlgren, who, in the early days of mobile phones, solved an interesting issue of data roaming: by the time you finish dialing you have lost contact with the original phone mast. She proposed the simple – but breathtakingly fundamental – change of dialing the complete number first and then hitting the dial button. Fantastic, simple, basic… and totally revolutionary thinking.

Next up was Marie Grusell who spoke on the topic of party leaders use of twitter in their communication. She made interesting points on the differences between dialog and monologue and the relatively low usage of twitter among Swedish politicians. My focus on this was cultural and I wondered why the use was so low. An interesting comparison to the low numbers (the highest was Gudrun Schyman with 183 following and 9,447 followers) is the Norwegian Prime Minister @jensstoltenberg who follws 34,768 and is followed by 48,698.

This was followed by Per Schlingmann & Hampus Brynolf who held a low-tech (i.e. no ppt) discussion on social media now and in the future. There talk was experienced based and they seemed to be in relative agreement that social media would become a natural part of the political dialogue, that nobody wins elections through social media – but they may lose them through social media, that technology has led to the need for politics to be prepared with immediate answers for everything – which creates a need for an artificial, slowing down to think before you tweet. They also pointed to the unfortunate lack of focus on the everyday social media use in politics and the overemphasis on campaigning.

This was followed by Anders Kihl who demonstrated the ways in which Borås has been working to create multiple access points to municipal information and dialogues. As a practitioner Anders is very down to earth and the work done in Borås shows that everyday social media use in politics is important and engaging.

Jan Nolin introduced the concept of Wikipolitics into the discussion which had so far been very much focused on the concept of social media as a communications channel. He argued that social media channels does not take into consideration the importance of the possibility of using social media as political movements – not only in protests but provides a potential for the harnessing of the power of crowds in everyday socio-political life.

Next up was Grethe Lindhe from Malmö who presented the ways in which the region was using technology to enable citizens to propose and bring up questions into the political arena. By creating this possibility the Malmö region believed that politics would be made more accessible to a larger section of the citizenry.

Lars Höglund took his starting point in the large SOM-survey to attempt to deepen our understanding of the participatory elements of politics and the internet. My main beef was that I got stuck on the group they call “the internet generation” which was defined as those born between 1977-1997. What annoys me about this is that this groups’ aspect is that they have not experienced a pre-web age. Why this classification annoys me is that these digital natives (a term coined by Marc Prensky) are supposed to have special insights into technology. Let me give an analogy: While I was born during the age of the automobile this does not make me competent to talk in depth about the effects of cars on society, our dependence upon fossil fuels or the rise and fall of the car industry.

Last up – before the closing panel was me. I had been asked to talk about the links between social media and the law but I used my time to present some of the interesting points from my latest research into attempts by municipalities to regulate social media through policies. Its a work in progress and yesterday I addressed the concept of the municipality lawyer being negative to social media in a talk entitled Law is simple, people are not. Slides below

lag är enkel, människor är svåra

View more presentations from Mathias Klang

One of the things we were asked in the panel was whats up next? What will we be doing with social media today and in the future. What is post-social media? All in all it was a very good meeting. Lots of interesting people and discussions. I am looking forward to the next time.

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Great Net Delusion Animation

Over on the IT Law in Ireland blog TJ McIntyre has posted about a great new RSA Animate called The Internet in Society: Empowering or Censoring Citizens? This one is based on Evgeny Morozov‘s great book The Net Delusion were he argues that the Internet and Web2.0 do not make democracy inevitable.

When writing his review in The Guardian Cory Doctorow was critical of The Net Delusion for his pessimism in the power of the Internet for promoting democracy. But I don’t think its so easy to ignore Morozov’s critique of the cyberutopian vision. I highly recommend The Net Delusion.

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Has Facebook peaked?

All things come to an end. Those who do not believe this probably just have very short memories or lack history skills. There have been big social network sites prior to and parallel to Facebook.

The problem of the Internet is contained in its greatest strength engineers rather than ordinary people. The problem with the Internet law is that we believe contracts trump rights. Put these two things together and we have the area where social networking sites work and play.

And Facebook has crushed opposition. Facebook has grown despite its lack of care of users interests (If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.). Oddly enough Facebook has managed to grown without much legal obstruction from states attempting to enforce privacy regulation (or other areas). Facebook has survived earlier attempts from users to quit. While the law is slowly (criminal neglect slow) beginning to look at what’s happening on social network sites I dont think it will be the law that has any real effect here.

But allow me to be a prophet of doom: The biggest threats to Facebook are size and apathy. Facebook is big and it is its size that will be its downfall. Even if users seem to be content with services offered I do think people are more bored with the standardized approach to social networking that Facebook offers.

But I do not expect an exodus. Nobody should expect this. What we see is not quitting out of indignation but rather out of apathy. We will keep our accounts but update them less often – or even worse connect our accounts to other services (like blog updates 🙂 and the updates will be irrelevant.

What to expect? Not much really. The same as with any other market where the customers are bored and under stimulated. The moment an alternative pops up the customers will flock to it in droves. Media will rave about this new cool cool thing. The giant will be weakened and then the law, the competitors, the investors and the general crazies will attack from all quarters.

Facebook will try to become the new MySpace: wounded but surviving as a niche product. And here it will struggle to survive since it will be a niche product without a niche. A generalist in a world of specialists.

 

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Facebook as censor

When I read that Facebook was censoring updates that include a rivals name – I was skeptical. Surely they wouldnt be so stupid? But then I tried it myself.  I logged into Facebook and wrote a status update: “Is it true that FB is censoring power.com” and pressed enter.

According to a blog post in the New York Times in 2008

Power.com, a Web start-up from Brazil with some prominent backers, aims to become the portal through which people access their online social lives. It’s up against no less than the world’s biggest Internet companies.

Facebook may be the biggest player in town but there are areas in the world where alternatives exist. Of course Facebook as a company has no obligation to play nice with others but let me quote Stan Lee: With great power comes great responsibility. If they do this then what is to stop Facebook from deleting people or other organizations?

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Social Media gets boring

The Sysomos blog has a post claiming that 2011 is the year that Social Media gets boring. At the heart of the argument is the fact that eventually the flashy, shiny new image of the thing will wear off and people will want a new toy.

By that, I mean the novelty will start to wear off as social media becomes a more engrained part of how we communicate, market and sell. Rather than being shiny, new and fascinating, social media will just be.

Social Media is still growing but I agree that its novelty has peaked. It didnt kill all the blogs or destroy old media. To those who find the tool useful it will survive to those who don’t it will eventually be abandoned along with so many other projects intended to change the world.

Despite this peaking of social media many government offices and municipalities are rushing in to the great communications hope. In social media they see a way of invigorating citizen communication but there is a problem – what does my municipality have to tweet that I want to read?

Recently I got an email informing me that the municipality of Uppsala is following me on twitter. It isn’t my first municipality or government but I can’t help but feeling a bit paranoid – the whole municipality is following me? Talk about pressure – what can I say that the municipality would like to hear? On the lighter side of social media and governments I am waiting to receive an email that the secret police are now following me on twitter. It’s not paranoia – it’s technology.

There are many interesting projects dealing with the uses of social media in local government and the tools can play an important role but they require work. Opening up a channel of communication requires an organization around the tool – to read and reply to messages, to handle questions that come up and at the same time ensure that the established norms of integrity and professionalism are maintained even in this new toy. Unfortunately many organizations see social media as a free toy that will require little effort but provide great publicity. These hopeful people need to be reminded that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The coming boredom of social media is a good thing. It will enable us to see beyond the hype and get on with the work of organization.

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Inspirational IR11

For the last couple of weeks the AOIR Internet Research Conference has been a major part of my life. The climax came when more than 250 internet researchers descended on Göteborg to meet, discuss, argue & present their ideas. In the 48 hours prior to the conference twitter began buzzing with messages of people leaving distant locations and/or arriving in the exotic conference city. At this stage the main goal seem coordination: where & how were the two main questions passed around on twitter and as in most cases the participants used a mixture of online information & communication to self-organize gatherings prior to the conference.

On Wednesday 20/11 the day was mainly about making sure that the venue actually worked in a live situation so I missed the pre-conference workshops which were:

  • Ethics and Internet Research Commons:  Building a sustainable future
  • Evaluating Social Media
  • Academic Career Development Workshop for Research Students and Early Career Academics
  • Learning and Research in Second Life

But, I did get inspirational glimpses both afk & via twitter. Among the quotes I would have liked to follow up was from Michael Zimmer : Some people publish texts online (blog posts, tweets) having a ‘presumption of obscurity’. The good news is that I got to meet plenty of people. It is quite fun – and often totally impossible – trying to recognize people from their twitter photos. The evening held a social event which was a great way to meet old and new friends. As a local I was pleased that many liked the city and intrigued by a delegate who had managed to find both a mountain and a labyrinth in central Göteborg – I never could figure out where she had been.

Day two was the conference proper. Which began with registration and organization. The morning went in a flash of practical matters. The biggest disappointment was the fact that keynote speaker Jon Bing had canceled late and the delegates attempted to self-organize a twitterwall based discussion in plenum it was enjoyable and sociable but maybe not successful as a directed discussion.

In the afternoon I attended the panel on networking and social sites where, amongst other things Zimmer presented his work on privacy and Facebook (also showing the historical changes to privacy settings). When referring to the fact/excuse that the user has the “possibility” to protect her identity he referred to privacy controls on Facebook as similar to the controls of  a Boeing 747 claiming: “anyone can fly a 747 cause the controls are there!” He also added that he was optimistic but ultimately skeptical of the Diaspora project.

After this I attended Sustainable Communities: Cultural Expressions on Facebook where I listened to Paul Baker present on Representing disability on social media & Jan Fernback gave a great presentation on FB sousveillance where she introduced me to the term Equiveillance which is an equilibrium between surveillance & sousveillance. In the same session I think it was Jaurice Hanson talking about Facebook and “Friends who deliberately showed her age – and gained common ground – by using the quotes “Never trust anyone over 30” & “who loves ya, baby?” The long day came to an end and discussions continued at the conference reception where the Mayor of Göteborg proved to be welcoming and very amusing.

Starting at 8:20 on day two proved challenging but attendance remain enthusiastic. My choice was the paper session on Digital Democracy and Participation where papers discussed social work in Austria (Myriam Cecile Antinori), Technological (in)Justice (Kathi R. Kitner) and a critical evaluation of the Techno-Social Policies in Turkey (Ferruh Mutlu Binark).

The session was closed by Ingrid Erickson who presented inspiring and simple projects focused on neighborhoods as context for youth citizen engagement (my favorite was Urban Biodiversity Network). She argued that youths must “be agents of their own learning” which I find both a most positive & depressing quote simultaneously. On the whole it was very interesting even if the nagging question of access to technology being equated with providing justice remained.

My next session was Tweeting it out: Twitter & sociality which attempted to look into twitter as a form discourse in the public sphere.

Axel Maireder spoke of the potentials for microblogging for transnational European public discourses. Andrew Long looked at elementary narrative structures on Twitter and David Houghton presented his research on self-disclosure on twitter with examples like secret tweet. The final presentation was by Theo Plothe who does some very interesting work on twitter use among NFL players who are using the medium to increase their cultural capital. During the presentation he not only quote MC Hammer but made it a point “Thats right, I just quoted MC Hammer”. I also got to learn what #smfh means (shaking my f**ing head).

Missing the keynote by Peter Arnfalk available here I returned to the conference to hear the presentation by Florence Chee @cheeflo about licensing, eulas and consent which took its starting point from the fact that users are unaware that game providers legally collect & share a great deal of information. Her research confirmed that users do not read ANY part of the Eula. (which reminded me of Izzard’s take on this).

Unfortunately this session was extremely depopulated without the chair or other speakers showing up but Florence Chee managed to turn the session into a keynote with discussions. Most memorable among the discussions was when Jean Burgess & Jeremy Hunsinger attempted to argue a point by discussing across the width of the large auditorium.

By the end of the day my mind was getting numb from all the presentations but I still battled on listening to discussions in the panel on The Internet as a Tool for Religious Cultural Formation where I was particularly interested in the discussions of mega-churches and the work of who is now on a post doc at HUMlab.

The final day began with a flurry of admin work, changes to schedules, rooms and making sure everything would still work. After this I walked in to listen to the Approaches to Internet Research panel where Daphne Ruth Raban explored the Information Society as a concept in an attempt to answer: Do we have a paradigm, field, area or what? Katja Prevodnik on measuring the digital divide. And Jeffrey Keefer presented his fascinating studies of developing researchers use of social media to express and understand their identities.

The mood was expectant of Nancy Bayms keynote where she talked about the internet, Swedish music and the changes occurring in the music industry. Among the memorable was “What we have is not market failure, we have imagination failure”

After the keynote there was an interesting session on Sharing and manipulating video and images. Here Stacey Greenaway videotagging game at the session on Sharing & manipulating videos & images and Gordon Fletcher presented on Photobombing (eg photobomb.net) as a social phen0menon – amusing, interesting and disturbing all at once. Meghan Peirce presented on tv shows online with the talk Television and Online Video: Adapting ‘Sex and the City’ for a Digital Environment.

For the final session of the conference I attended “All our Relations”: Playing with Networks. Where among the presentations I really enjoyed a very interesting talk by Nick Taylor on his video-based fieldwork in e-sports. By this time my brain was truly fried and the conference was over.

The best part of this conference was the people. I doubt that I have met a more open, enthusiastic, inquisitive group of researchers. They came early to everything and stayed late. Everyone was eager to talk about the research of others and not only their own. My only regret is not being able to attend more sessions and speak to even more people. So all I can say is next time Seattle!

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ReTweet: the power of twitter

An interesting thing happened at a conference I was attending last week. The were three speakers giving talks to all the attendants (c:a 300 people). First up was the minister of communication (unexciting but well formulated explaining new broadband policy), the was James Boyle discussing Cultural Agoraphobia (an excellent presentation on the public domain). Finally was a CEO who was supposed to be talking about mobility but spent the entire time promoting his own company and explaining why they were great.

In most such situations the crowd fidgets but endures. But not with a crowd that has access to twitter. The first tweets were bored comments about ill concealed marketing but this was soon followed by harsher comments. The tweets were ReTeeted and commented upon. There was an amazing difference between the online/offline reaction to the speech. Like an iceberg, the real action was under the surface.

Obviously he should not have been invited as a speaker. Nor should he have accepted to speak. And at least he should have respected those sitting listening to him enough not to turn his time into a blatant advertisement.

One of the questions tweeted at the time was why there wasn’t a screen where the speakers could see the reactions of the crowd. But is this a good idea? What are the social conventions of twittering in lectures? In non-tech situations we may allow our minds to wonder, occupy ourselves, maybe talk to our neighbors. Or in a gesture of our dissatisfaction walk out of the lecture hall.

Angry tweets to the world seem acceptable – But would nasty comments flowing along on a computer screen in front of the speaker be considered ill mannered?

Twitter has already been the subject of discussion in academic circles. In October (2009) Laura Bonetta Should You Be Tweeting?

In May of this year, Daniel MacArthur, a researcher at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge…reported live from the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) meeting Biology of Genomes.

A participant from the online news site Genomeweb protested that MacArthur was twittering and blogging about the meeting. The basis of there protest was that while media had to obtain permission to be able to report from the meeting but MacArthur was attending the meeting as a participant and therefore was not required to obtain permission. As a result of this complaint the CSHL notified a change of its rules:

“any participant intending to blog, twitter or otherwise communicate or disseminate results or discussion presented at the meeting to anonymous third parties must obtain permission from the relevant presenting author before communicating any results or discussion to third party groups, message boards, blogs or other online resources (other than your own lab or departments).”

But this seems to be an extreme way to go…

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