Discuss: Is Facebook or Twitter the better tool for raising a ruckus online?

i cant stand twitter. too much over exposure for me to handle.

I did turn to facebook once shortly after election night when prop 8 passed and everyone was planning the protest in their own cities....but nowadays, i just read blogs for something. i only turn to facebook if a huge meetup is planned for something in my area.

There's a book called "Here Comes Everybody" that a friend of mine was reading and we had a discussion about. It basically says that new technologies can be used for organizing large numbers of people without the "power" of tradtional organizations. In other words, things like the internet and texting and now Twitter can reach huge numbers of people almost immediately in ways that could never happen in the past without money and overarching organizations. This gives great power to "ordinary" people while bypassing the normal routes of information. One of the examples is "flashmobs" -- people suddenly meeting for "street theater" by way of e-mail or texting. Getting info out on things like boycotts and protests would also be part of this movement.

I have nothing to do with either Twitter or Facebook (my social anxiety ensures that I don't want to feel like people are watching me 24/7), but I am constantly checking politicized blogs, such as AfterElton and Jezebel.  Y'all are very good at keeping me in the loop.  :)

"Go, or go ahead and surprise me."  -- Rufus Wainwright

I've been turning a blog entry over in my head for a while on the topic of sustaining outrage and the power of new media to do it.  It's a topic that won't go away in my mind, but I can't get it to gel for the keyboard.

Twitter, which I'm terribly fond of, is great for spreading news quickly.  Done right, people can pick up and retweet things and reach a wide audience in minutes.  You've got to find a good hashtag to include (recently, Michael had us try and use #FOXFAIL for the SYTYCD mess, which I tried, but also discovered that to be a fairly common hashtag for a variety of topics, unfortunately), and if you can summarize it in 140 characters, it helps.  Included links seem to reduce the spread of information to some degree.

The other problem is something I've named the Twitterswarm(TM).  Twitter, used right, isn't a broadcast medium, but a chat medium.  I converse constantly with people.  The same people, it seems.  I pick up half a conversation with someone I'm following is having with someone I'm not, then I follow the missing person so I can jump in.  The result seems to be a group of people with similar interests that all follow each other, but don't have a lot of reach outside that local Twitterswarm(TM).  So it can definitely slow the spread of something when you're all talking about it, but if you each have 100 followers and have 98 of them in common.  News never gets out beyond the group.  And the 'bots that sometimes pick up common words and retweet them out to groups are just spam to me - I block them when I find them.  Friends retweeting is great, keyword software is noise.

Facebook can be where outrage turns into activism.  Groups can be formed, networks tend to be a little more diverse, and information is more static.  You can make plans, sign petitions, and feed that both on Twitter and Facebook.  @davidbadash is an amazing activist to follow, and makes good use of both tools, plus his own blog, to push for change, and therefore also has the reach to spread outrage beyond a Twitterswarm.

Facebook is still a lot bigger, and more accessible to people.  Twitter backlash is huge - Oprah and media publicity has introduced a lot of people to it that just don't get the two-way nature, or hate it as people announcing their bowel movements.  Facebook is mainstream, and that helps it be part of sustained campaigns, and not just those that choose to live their lives plugged into the 'net.

There's obviously a place for both to be used in a complimentary way, along with blogs, to get work done.  That said, I'm continuously on Twitter, and log into Facebook only when alerted.  Someone way back, perhaps @nerdist or @wilw, tweeted this gem: Ever notice how friends on Facebook are from your past, but people on Twitter are your future?

Another business just pulled their advertising from the station. Bank of America announced today they are pulling out. It looks like the job is getting done, and I'm anxiously awaiting the response from the show about this turn of events.

Also, it seems they have put a disclaimer to their website recently, where when you go to it, it no longer goes straight to the website, but asks if you are at least 18 (in a very condescending way, in my opinion), as the material is not appropriate for underaged fans.

ETA: Damn, everything's moving at warp speed. Verizon and Carl's Jr  have also pulled out.

I hang out at Live Journal, and word spreads very quickly there.  Just as effectively as Twitter and Facebook, but on a smaller scale.

I think both Twitter and Facebook are excellent tools for spreading news, but people have to choose to be informed.  I have both Twitter and Facebook accounts; with Twitter, I only follow others and it's to stay informed of breaking and/or interesting news. I made the choice to include media outlets on my follow list, and you can't count on others making that same choice.

While my Facebook account is mostly a social outlet for me, I have a few friends who like to keep everyone well informed, so I pick up interesting news there too.  But don't count on me hearing about it on Facebook with great speed.

For broad coverage, Twitter and Facebook should be employeed along other media tools to get the word out.

 

I didn't get twitter at first, so I didn't try and get into it, it dragged me into it when it was useful without me having to try. I got twitterfox so tweets would pop up and i could click them or reply easily like msn. I followed some political ppl and lgbt twitters and normal news so i would be in touch and it works so well. i don't use it to listen to what friends or celebs eat for dinner as many ppl assume it is all that it is good for. You feel really connected when stuff like prop 8 happens and everyone tweets, not to mention its nice having spport from clebes on stuff like that, or role models.

 

as to the radio guys, which is which? Although the main guy talking was repellent in every way with his views and the way he kept making an incorrect beep noise every time Dawn spoke and claiming his opinion was fact I have to say that the other guy laughing annoyed me even more. Moronic hyena, at least the other guy has his own opinons, standing behind the strongest guy and laughing behind his hateful spewing is even more repellent and weak and any person who deals with being trans is a stronger braver person than him.

I esp. hated the guy saying it was attention seeking, what! Is that why so many people struggle to tell anybody? that i'd guess they usually try and pass. and I can see an issue with children making any big decision but I mean a seeing a child so uncomfortable when a documentary crew is shown photos of them before they wore skirts, what else does that show? and if someone still feels a certain way at puberty thats a good place to make the change cus its harder to transition after that I hear, to pass anyways. and i've seen a few docu's and sometimes you can't even tell a person is trans esp. if they're children, they're not affecting others. grr

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________________________________

"there's always time for a burrow..."
"We're getting fired, fired, fired, firedddd"

*** meep meep! ***

Hello, long time lurker here.

Your question reminded me here in Colombia the march of the 4th of february against Farc last year. Farc is the most notorious guerrilla group that's been fighting the government for over almost 5 decades, and is despised by the population. After some hostage liberations and a heavy political climate involving Venezuela someone started a facebook group that grew larger, and eventually the local media backed them up in making one, if not the biggest march in the country, with several marches all around the world and millions of people supporting it. For the curious people more info here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7225824.stm.

It was pretty surreal, specially for a country with less than 10% of its people with internet access. Of course the situation is far more complex that what I'm trying to explain, but the facebook group was no doubt the catalyst for the march, proving that it is quite a powerful tool.

Every new technology has a backlash. I remember when beepers were the devil! Schools banned them! They were the tools of drug dealers! Evil! If you go back far enough you can read editorials on the evils of the telephone -- and even farther back, the evils of cheap newspapers, which would warp the weak minds of the lower classes. It isn't Twitter or Facebook or whatever, it's the way people make use of them, obviously. Some people are jerks and will misuse anything they touch, while others will figure out to put it to good use.

. . .now that you're able to go after small goldfish like KRXQ, maybe some of y'all will take the hint and go after bigger fish, like Fox News (*hint!* *hint!*)

;-)

 

http://glaadblog.org/2009/06/07/update-krxq-radio-host-rob-williams-declares-failure/

Looks like losing all those sponsers finally had an impact!

 

PS. I got it from Twitter!  :} 

 

"You bit the hand, Marty, You bit the hand!"