On Wednesday I sat down to my computer with my morning cup of coffee and discovered the nice folks at Twitter had decided to give me a timeout. My account had been temporarily suspended for reasons unknown. As I contemplated the possibility of being cut off from my friends and my conduit for news and information, I was forced to think how the tools of social media impact my life and my organization.
Mark Zuckeberg, Facebook’s CEO, interviewed by Mark Scoble from Crenk.com. Zuckerberg is quite sure that the real value from the web platform resides in multiple websites and applications across the Internet, and Facebook it’s not going to try to centralize all that; even better, Facebook will represent the entire platform that any user will need as for identification, business, relationship, etc.
Press coverage for social media tools like Facebook and Twitter have become deafening. Each has been around for several years, but the stars finally aligned with the convergence of new media, the 2008 election, pop culture, mobile technology, politics, and the ubiquity of high speed internet connections.
In the war of ideas, it’s not enough just to be against something; you have to be for something that is sound as well. Before you set out to alter the status quo, you ought to know how to replace it—and you need to be convinced, intellectually and in your heart, that the new system will actually be better.
It is the responsibility of those in each faction of a political movement to hold its own accountable. Anti-Semitism (and racism) is a serious matter and should never be used by any political organization as a tool in its communications toolbox. As Right and Center-right political activists, our credibility on this issue is at stake when one of our own engages in distasteful tactics. As such, it is incumbent on the Right to leverage its influence and demand ALG produce real proof of their allegations. When and if such proof is not forthcoming, I hope we all use our resources to rebuke ALG with the same level of outrage we had when the original story first broke.
The beauty of some of our nation’s founding documents is a relative brevity that has allowed the ideas to endure the test of time. Of course, had the Founding Fathers had Twitter accounts, and been limited to only 140 characters per tweet, perhaps our Bill of Rights would have looked very different. Imagine @JamesMadison tweeting…
One of the problems conservatives have is defining themselves as a coalition. When conservatives don’t define themselves, others do… often incorrectly. American Conservatives should not be afraid to define American conservatism. If the risks are bad press coverage, alienation, and election day loses… they already have that.
Friday, February 20, 2009
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