A London soldier was brutally killed in the U.K. last night as part of a harrowing terrorist attack. Lee Rigby, the 25 year-old drummer and father of a 2 year-old, was on active duty when he was reportedly attacked by two assailants at the gate of the Royal Artillery Barracks (location shown above). The men…
Students in an Advanced Cartography course at California’s Humboldt State University have unveiled what many folks already realize: Twitter is racist and homophobic. The students compiled a map of hate speech on Twitter for a project called the “Geography of Hate.” The map used 150,000 tweets sent from June 2012 through April 2013 to determine…
From The Grio – Social media has given a powerful voice to people of color, complementing an often one-dimensional mainstream when it comes to representing controversial racial issues. Specifically, African-American users on Twitter have become a particularly powerful force. Termed “Black Twitter” (or #BlackTwitter), this networked group of users has emerged as the 21st century extension of…
Welcome to Friday Finds! This is the spot where I hip you to some of the cool/interesting things I stumbled upon during the week. Enjoy!
As the horrific events during the Boston Marathon unfolded yesterday–Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites were awash with news updates, condolences, expressions of shock and reassurances from Bostonians of their personal safety. But amidst all of that there were also people going about business as usual in their feeds. They posted about what they…
I’m a big hip hop fan, but even the most diligent of us sometimes lets good music fall through the cracks. My most recent example of that is Killer Mike. I’ve known who Killer Mike is for years. The Atlanta rapper has done plenty of verses on various Dungeon Family joints and he even has…
I joined Twitter on May 8, 2008. As of today, I have over 82,000 tweets but I suck at following my timeline on Twitter. And that list capability? I don’t ever use it. Throughout the day if I catch something interesting I’ll retweet it. Occasionally I’ll share something crazy my grandmother has said, something random…
Todd Kincannon, a former top GOP official in South Carolina, wants to know why people won’t let him make a fool of himself on social media in peace. The lawyer, who once served as executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, mocked impoverished victims of Hurricane Katrina and the death of unarmed 17 year-old…
First Lady Michelle Obama is out with the old and in with the new. Yesterday, Mrs. Obama celebrated her 49th birthday with a new Twitter handle, @FLOTUS, and a new hairstyle — bangs! The FLOTUS account, which is the acronym for First Lady of the United States, is run by the First Lady’s office. The…
I first received news about the tragedy in Newtown through a CNN alert in my work inbox and then turned immediately to Twitter as the story unfolded. Weeks before that, on election night, I watched my Twitter feed more closely than MSNBC or C-SPAN. And earlier in 2012 still, I sat in a restaurant in…
