Categories
Engagement Social media

Engaging in disengagement: Publisher drops his social media accounts

I joined Facebook about three years ago.

I deleted my Facebook account earlier this week.

I decided I didn’t need it.

Even crazier, I deleted the News-Record’s Facebook page as well.

While these moves may seem counterintuitive for a community journalism professional, I thought I’d air my reasoning out here.

Until September 2016, I had resisted Facebook.

I assumed it was a waste of time and was nothing I was interested in.

I was forced into joining by a graduate school professor who decided he would host all of his online lectures that semester on Facebook Live.

The university offered a perfectly fine video conferencing tool— it was better, actually— but, this professor saw something media savvy in the newly offered Facebook Live application.

While I assumed this was the act of a young Mass Communication professor trying to build his tenure application by trying new things, the mandate required each class member to join Facebook in order to be a member of these sessions.

So I did.

I remember telling my wife then, “You hear about all these people complaining about time wasting on Facebook; I’ll probably become one of those people.”

I was right. I did.

While I think social media is a great tool, I’ve seen its terrible side too.

We witnessed obscene comments— via social media— earlier this year when a football coach wasn’t rehired.

They played out for days as comments on the News-Record’s original report of a school board meeting.

I eventually removed the original post. I figured we wouldn’t print such trash in the actual newspaper— why let it play out there?

Then I was criticized, by some, for trying to “control the narrative.”

I’ve seen seemingly grounded intelligent people share blatantly false news reports on Facebook as if they were the gospel and then not care about them being false when it was pointed out.

This is part of the problem with Facebook.

Facebook told the Washington Post last week, “We don’t have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true.”

From day one, Facebook has maintained that it is a platform and not a publisher.

But they want the protections of a publisher— first amendment rights and all— without the responsibilities of a publisher.

As a publisher, I am subject to libel laws and standards of ethical practice.

The paramount of which is that what he publish must be true.

Yes, satire is protected; but satire is another story.

Facebook just admitted they don’t care if what they dispense is the truth.

Thereby, they are part of the problem.

They have also admitted their business model revolves about harvesting our personal data.

To Facebook, we are not an audience. We are the product they sell.

All of this legal and ethical stuff aside, me leaving Facebook was a personal decision.

I was just wasting too much time on it. I’d sit down to check my feed and look up and it would be an hour later.

And I wouldn’t be any better for the time I had spent.

I am not the type who can look at it for a minute and put it down for a day.

I am too nosey.

So, it’s time for me to re-center the energy of being nosey to more productive means— enterprising community newspaper reporting.

I was able to do that before Facebook came along.

I was also able to meet my wife, have four wonderful kids, graduate college, build a successful career, grow a great circle of friends and maintain a passion for performing live music— all without Facebook.

While you may miss pictures of what I’m having for dinner, I am still available for cup of coffee and conversation whenever you can stop by the office.

Businesses nowadays are concerned with “engagement.”

The trend is trying to find new ways to achieve “engagement” via social media.

To me, “engagement” is what we used to do before we got so busy monitoring our social media feeds.

It is a place we need to get back to.

Categories
Ask an Expert Questions and Answers Social media

Can I quote a public Facebook post in my story?

Question:  A person posts on a Facebook open forum page he manages about witnessing a fire and how he tried to help. Then stated how the fire department was slow to arrive at the scene. He said he didn't want to be quoted during private messaging, then posts it for everyone to see. Can I use this in my story, saying this is what was posted on Facebook?

Answer:  Legally, yes printing truthful, accurate information in a public place will not lead to any liability.  Particularly if it was posted on an “open forum” (presumably a Facebook page viewable by the general public, not just those invited to participate or closed and available only to friends).

Ethically, that's the reporter's call.  If somebody says “please don¹t use this” and you do the opposite, there should be compelling reasons.  This would certainly need more investigation on your part – this person said that the fire department was slow to arrive, but what was his expertise in judging response times?

Certainly it needs a comment from the fire department.  And perhaps some investigation on fire department response times.

Categories
Ask an Expert Questions and Answers Social media

How can I integrate someone else’s Twitter posts into my site?

If you’re wanting to integrate someone else’s Tweets into your website there are a couple of options, some of which are quite easy and others that will require some technical know-how. Here are 5 easy options:

  1. Embed Twitter’s official widget. This widget is intended to embed your own tweets into a site but it works just the same for someone else’s. You’d just input the user name of the person whose tweets you’d like to integrate during the setup. You can also change the colors/size/etc. to make the widget fit the look of your site. Under “Preferences” you’ll want to be sure to check “Poll for new results” so the user’s tweets will update more or less in real-time. Then, you’ll just grab the code they give you and embed it in your site.
  2. Embed SayTweet. This method is a little more creative. With SayTweet, you upload (or link to) a photo and the latest tweet is automatically overlaid onto the photo. So you could have a photo of the person whose tweets you are integrating, and a thought bubble will hover on the photo with the user’s latest tweet. This is another widget you’ll be able to embed with copy/paste code. It’s also a creative option for integrating your own tweets.
  3. Embed TwitStamp. There are a lot of other widget providers out there, but one of the flashier ones I’ve seen is TwitStamp. You’ll want one of their “latest” widgets. There are a lot of options there in several different sizes.
  4. CoverItLive also integrates tweets. You’ll just have to put the name of the user in when you’re setting up your live chat. If you’re not already using CoverItLive (it’s a live-blogging platform), it’s worth checking out anyway. This is more of a short-term solution than the other options, though.
  5. And there’s the advanced method. You can also use a more complicated version of a Twitter widget that is a more streamlined widget but requires more work on your end. This is a more difficult solution to implement. One of the better examples out there is Tweet!. We’ve also used Monitter, which can be heavily modified to fit the look of your site. In both cases, you’ll have to download this widget, modify code, etc. The direction are on the site. This is going to provide a more heavily-customized solution and allow more flexibility in the end. It will also reduce your reliability on an outside widget provider.