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Popular this week on socialmedian
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washingtonpost.com - Letters to the Editor:
Michael Kinsley suggested that President-elect Barack Obama may be fibbing about giving up cigarettes and said we should "offer him a light and look the other way" ["Let the Guy Smoke," op-ed, Nov. 20]. Mr. Kinsley may have said this in jest, but it's no joke that smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in this co (Read More)
7 hours ago
: @homosuperior I am a mere fool, a caperer in a cap, the jester-philosopher of the interweb; to laugh at my words is the greatest compliment you can give them!@greghollingsworth As a culture, we have rejected accountability as a notion. Whether it is the solution of religion ("Are you a bad person? Well, with the special Judeo-Christian package you can simultaneously justify your actions with Original Sin while avoiding all possible responsibility for them with the special 'Chosen Forgiven People' feature. Maintain your sense of superiority and entitlement while avoiding all accountability for your moral failures with religion...operators standing by!") or democracy itself ("Having a problem with responsibility for your actions as a leader? The democracy package allows for all the benefits of government with none of the accountability! Do what you want, and when the time comes for the bill or the blame, simply point to an intellectual abstraction called 'The People' (patent pending) which can never be held responsible for anything! Call now!"). This is our world, wonder of wonders. 
6 hours ago
: @thepuck I don't know if the problem is that systemic, I think that as opposed to writing off accountability, we've simply shifted it to our leaders and blamed them when things don't go the way the majority of society thinks they should.The notion of personal accountability has been overrun in this country by the sue-first ask questions later culture of our legal system. We are told from a very young age not to admit fault, which in turn degrades our own ability to accept fault. We shouldn't tell anyone it's our fault, so it must actually be someone else's fault. Personal accountability seems to be reserved only for public figures, and then only due to the possibility of widespread exposure (Michael Vick is a good recent example of this). If a teenage girl gets pregnant it's not her fault, or the fault of her parents it's societies fault for sexualizing girls at such an early age. When two disaffected teens kill a dozen people it's not their fault, it's Marilyn Manson's fault. Hell, some even went so far as to asign blame for Timothy McVeigh's actions to others, but when it comes down to it, Timothy McVeigh blew up that building, not some guy who wrote an atrocious book about a race war (he may be dispicable, not to mention a terrible author, but he didn't blow up any buildings). We as a society need to start accepting responsibility and taking accountability for our actions as a society, we are after all (at least for the time being) the ones who give our government permission to rule. 56
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Submitted by jasongoldberg:
Who are the top 50 people who made socialmedian great this year? Nominate your favorite Newsmakers by December 5, 2008. Nominate up to 5 Newsmakers by identifying their @username in the comments field to this story no later than December 5, 2008. The top 50 vote-getters will get a special socialmedian holiday gift (even (Read More)
3 days ago
: My 5 nominees are as follows: @michaelfidler, @robdiana, @louisgray, @jeffdoug, @greghollingsworth, and @thomaspower. Who are your top 5?
7 hours ago
: I'm sorry, I just can't choose 5...I just can't. There are so many to narrow it down. Thanks to everyone who nominated me, though. That's flattering! :)
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ReadWriteWeb:
It seems we're approaching a new age here on the Internet. Instead being anonymous, faceless IP addresses, social computing and changing technologies have allowed the lines between the "real" world and the "virtual" world to blur. Web 2.0 helped create a world where your identity is revealed in bits and pieces as you share (Read More)
7 hours ago
: We can't equate privacy with anonymity, that isn't the point. Privacy is about sharing what you want to WHOM you want. I actually think that anonymity may be a BAD thing on the Web, since people do or say things they normally would not or should not (hate that should word, but its out there).
7 hours ago
: There is a disarming naivete about those of you in the developed world that is born of the same complacent smiley-face mentality that left you so shell-shocked by 9/11. It'll mever happen here. Love, peace, save the whales & all that drivel. Anonymity is a right we have to fight for - that's gonna be the new battleground. Because once they know all about you, they have the power of life or death over you. And, here in the 4th world, we know, REALLY KNOW what that means. Incidentally, if you live in Washington DC, you are photographed at least 100 times each day. In Manchester England that figure sits at about 145 times a day. Anonymity is a modern myth. And privacy is as much ancient history as the Mayan sun-worshippers. Wake up and smell the Hoover, boyz 'n gals.
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Submitted by magitam
from Google Reader:
Twitter is emerging as a major force in breaking news. But some people disagree.Today we saw yet another illustration, when people in Mumbai got the word of terrorist attacks out to the world well before mainstream media even knew something was happening. Mathew Ingram points out previous examples of Twitter users breaking (Read More)
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