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THE European Union has offered 500 000 euro to fund operations of the Zimbabwe Media Commission and implement a raft of activities, including MDC-T's proposed media reforms.

According to documents seen by The Herald, the EU will use Unesco as a conduit to convey the money. It is understood that the EU chose to deal with Unesco to circumvent sections of Government they claimed to be unhappy with.

EU charge d'affaires in Harare, Mr Carl Skau, yesterday confirmed that the European bloc was supporting various institutional processes in Zimbabwe.

However, according to the documents, the EU would not fund ZMC's strategic plan approved by the body at its retreat in Kadoma last year.

Instead, the EU through Unesco had come up with conditions that ZMC should follow to access the facility.

As part of the conditions, the EU demanded that the ZMC secretariat inherited from its predecessor the Media Information Commission be dissolved.

In the event that the same staff was hired for the new ZMC secretariat, the document noted they should be trained and reoriented to work in line with the new ZMC's mandate.

Through the fund, the EU also wanted ZMC to assume legislative powers and overturn the country's media laws such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Broadcasting Services Act.

The EU said the environment in Zimbabwe needed to be reviewed because it was not conducive for media development.

It argued that the continued existence of AIPPA was a threat to media freedom because it was the same legislation that Government used to shutdown some media houses.

Originally posted here:
Zimbabwe: EU Dangles 500 000 Euro to Control Media

The ninth annualRIMC(Reykjavik Internet Marketing Conference) took place March 9. Theannual conference, which takes place in Icelands capital,is organized byKristjan Mar Hauksson, SES speaker, SEMPO board director, and founder ofNordic eMarketing.

Here's a wrapup of some of the highlights from RIMC 2012.

The morning welcome was delivered by the President of Iceland. Without slides and in a very relaxed tone, the president talked us through his personal experiences of new media; in particular about how instrumental social media had been as a tool for the people of Iceland to organize and protest after the fall of the banks in 2008.

Prior to the Arab Spring, the people of Iceland had used Facebook and Twitter to petition the government to reject various referenda. President lafur had quickly tuned in to the power of social media, and the ability for him to use such platforms to speak directly to the Icelandic electorate and for the past 18 months has rejected traditional media and global news appearances (on broadcasters such as CNN, Fox, and Reuters), in favor of social media.

President lafurs speech was quite emotive, certainly inspirational, and helped set the theme for the day, which was You are Not in Control. In this perspective the point was that technology has been a genuine and powerful tool for social change; facilitating democratic movement, greater and more personalized communication, plus mass organization and collaboration. It was clear that for President lafur that social media has helped to remove control from the hands of the few powerful leaders and media owners.

The President of Iceland opens the conference (Image Credit: Jackie Hole)

I was interested to see Pariser's keynote; having read the book "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You" a few months ago. The book and Parisers talk concerns personalized behavioral algorithms and the inherent dangers of content and behavioral clustering, in how this can lead to ring-fenced views of the world.

Pariser first began to see the most tangible effects of this personalization around the time of the last U.S. elections. Up to a certain point Pariser had seen content shared by people in his Facebook network that represented their own varying left and right-wing interests.

Over time the algorithms at play had learned through Parisers own re-shares, likes and interactions of his own political leanings; then suddenly and close to election time he was presented only with the content that matched his own political preferences. Thus being a completely one-sided view of content from his network. Thinking about this to its logical conclusions Pariser noted a number of concerns with this method of filtering content.

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You Are Not in Control – #RIMC 2012 Highlights

BY DEON J. HAMPTON

RUTHERFORD Municipal firefighters must now monitor what they post on popular social networking sites to ensure that they aren't revealing information from fire scenes not privy to the public.

The Borough Council has passed a resolution to create the social media policy at the request of the volunteer Fire Department.

Fire Chief John Melfa made it clear that the request was a preventive measure and not a result of any inappropriate postings.

"Even though we are volunteers, there is still a code of ethics which must be followed," Melfa said.

Postings on social networking sites can lead the public to assume that the firefighters are speaking on behalf of the department, Melfa said of the 74-member staff.

Under the new policy, firefighters can have user accounts on sites such as Twitter and Facebook, but they aren't allowed to reveal any information about fire scenes.

Officials said the policy came about when firefighters were recently discussing ways to improve the department. Melfa said the department must keep up with evolving technology.

Email: hampton@northjersey.com

See the rest here:
Rutherford asks its firefighters for restraint in social networking

According to a new poll from the Pew Research Centers Internet & American Life Project, self-described liberals are twice as likely than self-described conservatives to block material on social networking websites that they find politically disagreeable.

Thirty-six percent of social media users said they have blocked, unfriended or hidden someone because of politics, but left-leaning participants were far more likely to havetaken that action to express disagreement about a friends political views.

Liberals are the most likely to have taken steps to block, unfriend, or hide disagreeable political messages, Pew concluded. In all, 28% of liberals have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on SNS [social networking sites] because of one of these reasons, compared with 16% of conservatives and 14% of moderates.

Sixteen percent of liberal users said theyblocked someone who posted something specific that they disagreed with, compared to eight percent of conservative users.

Liberals are also far more likely than conservatives 11 percent compared with 4 percent to completely delete friends from social networking sites because they disagree with their politics.

There has been no word nor will there likely be any about whether liberals will enjoy reading this story. Many, if the Pew study is to be believed, will just block it from their news feeds.

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Study: Liberals more likely to block social-media friends over political differences

Time for Newt to exit the race

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Study: Liberals more likely to block social-media friends over political differences

A "Facebook" for tattoo lovers? Surely the social-networking bandwagon is already full to tipping. But hold on--the photos section here seems tailor-made for this community. And beyond.

I pity the fool who says social networking has jumped the shark.

Sure, Mark Zuckerberg has a hoodie with weird totemic symbols hidden on the inside. But if he were truly hard core, he'd have a Like icon tattooed on his neck and the word "HACK" inked in all uppercase black letters from one shoulder to the other.

You can bet members of the tattoo-themed social network the TatSpot don't mess around with wussy iron-on transfers. These people go the distance, as evidenced by the photos on the site.

A tattoo-themed social network? You're probably thinking, "OK, the whole social-media thing has really jumped the shark." But why not? After all, I'd wager there's a forum or chat room or virtual who-knows-what for just about every wired subculture on the planet.

And though many of the TatSpot's different areas (videos, events, blogs, and the like) have yet to be filled out with posts (we got an e-mail announcement about the site just today), the aforementioned photos section seems to be off to a colorful start and appears tailor-made for this community.

And beyond. The photos section is a fascinating little journey for anyone, tattooed or not. As new as it is, you'll still encounter a cornucopia of iconography, from Mr. T to an unknown soldier to Mahatma Gandhi. And we suspect this will only get weirder and more wonderful with time.

The only problem I have with the site is its name. My CNET colleague Jeff Sparkman came up with a far better one: InkedIn.

Link:
TatSpot: New social network gets under your skin