Kuwait will put on trial two citizens for criticizing Gulf Arab ruling families on social media site Twitter, a security official said on Monday.Nasser Abul, a Kuwaiti Shi'ite Muslim, was arrested for posting criticisms of the Sunni Muslim ruling families in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and Lawrence al-Rashidi posted defamatory comments of Kuwait's emir, he said.He said both would remain in detention for two more weeks before a hearing is scheduled, where they will likely face charges of harming the Gulf Arab state's interests and defaming the country's ruler after being arrested earlier in June.Democracy activists have used social media such as Facebook and Twitter to debate, organize and share information in Bahrain, where the kingdom's Sunni rulers crushed a protest movement in March led mostly by the country's Shi'ite majority.Bahrain called in troops from Sunni-led neighbors such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to enforce its crackdown. OPEC member Kuwait, which has a Shi'ite minority, sent naval forces.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/us-kuwait-twitter-idUSTRE75Q1UH20110627
A footballer has launched legal action against Twitter after a number of the microblogging site's users purported to reveal the name of the player who allegedly had an affair with model Imogen Thomas.The footballer's legal team began the legal action at the high court in London on Wednesday, in what is thought to be the first action against the US social media firm and its users.The lawsuit lists the defendants as "Twitter Inc and persons unknown". The latter are described as those "responsible for the publication of information on the Twitter accounts" in the court document, according to reports.Earlier this month, an unknown person or individuals published the names of various people who had allegedly taken out gagging orders to conceal sexual indiscretions on a Twitter account. The account rapidly attracted more than 100,000 followers.Twitter declined to comment.The lord chief justice, Lord Judge, on Friday said Twitter and its users were totally out of control when it comes to privacy injunctions and court orders.Although there was no mention of Twitter in Lord Neuberger's long-awaited report on superinjunctions, published on Friday, Lord Judge said readers placed greater trust in the contents of traditional media than in those "who peddle lies" on websites.Twitter and other social networks were accused of making "an ass of the law" by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt and politicians after a number of celebrities with injunctions were allegedly exposed online.The socialite Jemima Khan was among those claimed on Twitter to have obtained an injunction. Khan described rumours, which had suggested falsely she had obtained a gagging order to prevent publication of "intimate photos" of herself and Jeremy Clarkson, as a "bloody nightmare".Twitter has said that it "strive[s] not to remove tweets on the basis of their content", but that it would remove "illegal tweets and spam".Mark Stephens, a senior media lawyer at Finers Stephens Innocent, said the lawsuit had little hope of succeeding."This is not only scraping the bottom of the barrel, this is beneath the barrel. This [injunction] information is already available on servers outside of this jurisdiction and on website outside this jurisdiction," he said."You would have to be a moron in a hurry to suggest to this footballer that he throw good money and publicly excoriate himself yet further."Read Morehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/20/twitter-sued-by-footballer-over-privacy
As an update to its Social Search announced yesterday, Google is returning links garnered from Twitter in its search results.It works something like this: If a friend tweets a link to an article and you search for a related topic, Google “may show that link in your results with a clear annotation”, product management director Mike Cassidy wrote in a blog post.Social Search results will also be mixed throughout Google’s PageRank results, so users will start seeing more recommended links from friends.“Relevance isn’t just about pages—it’s also about relationships,” Cassidy wrote. “Today we’re taking another step forward—enabling you to get even more information from the people that matter to you.”Read Morehttp://www.designtaxi.com/news/34074/Google-Starts-Using-Twitter-in-Search-Results/?page=2
An odd confluence of important issues came together in a federal courtroom in Alexandria on Tuesday: the criminal investigation of WikiLeaks, free speech and social networking.It all stemmed from the government's attempts to get personal information from the Twitter accounts of three people linked to the WikiLeaks probe. Their lawyers argued that the data - screen names, mailing addresses, telephone numbers, credit card and bank account information, and Internet protocol addresses - are protected by the First Amendment. Prosecutors said the request is a routine part of their criminal probe.It was the opening salvo in what experts expect to be a long and difficult investigation of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and others suspected of disclosing thousands of classified documents on the anti-secrecy Web site.Tuesday's arguments went to the heart of a larger debate about WikiLeaks - whether the posting of the documents was free speech or a violation of national security. They also provided a high-profile test of outdated rules about what data the government can seize in the new world of social networking.In the courtroom, John Keker, a lawyer representing one of the Twitter clients, said the users' data would give the government a map of people tied to WikiLeaks and essentially halt free speech online. He noted how social networking sites have been used in Egypt and Tunisia, where citizens have pushed for government changes, and suggested that such a broad request by the U.S. government in this case would put a stop to that.John Palfrey, a Harvard law professor not associated with the case, said the government is using 18th-century arguments with 21st-century technology."These are not new arguments, but they're being used in a really interesting and important way that has a twist to them in light of social media," he said.New details of probeUntil now, there has been little public evidence of the government's criminal investigation of WikiLeaks, a probe Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced in late November.Information began to come out last week after U.S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Carroll Buchanan granted a motion from the three Twitter clients to unseal some filings in the case. Tuesday's hearing was the first public debate in the criminal investigation of Assange and others.Read Morehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/15/AR2011021506483.html
A civil servant who claimed invasion of privacy when her Twitter messages were reprinted in newspapers has had her complaint rejected by the press regulator.Sarah Baskerville, a Department for Transport manager, last year published a series of tweets critical of the coalition's cuts, attacking Downing Street "spin" and telling her 700 followers that the leader of a training course she attended was "mental". The comments were published in the Daily Mail and The Independent on Sunday in November. Ms Baskerville said this information was only meant to be seen by her followers. Deciding in the newspapers' favour today, the PCC said the fact that tweets are publicly accessible on the web was key."It was quite clear that the potential audience for the information was actually much larger than the 700 people who followed the complainant directly, not least because any message could easily be retweeted to a wider audience," the regulator said. The decision also took into account civil service rules on political impartiality, which the newspapers said justified highlighting Ms Baskerville's views."The commission is increasingly being asked to make judgments about what can legitimately be described as private information," said PCC director Stephen Abell.Read More
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tweets-are-not-private-rules-watchdog-in-landmark-case-2208724.html
Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa has gone missing after joining protests against the Egyptian government, according to report citing the exec's brother.The Wall Street Journal reports that Wael Ghonim – who joined Google in late 2008 – has not been heard from since Friday at 6pm.It should be noted, however, the Egyptian government has restricted internet and cell phone access within the country.Ghonim attended Cairo University and the American University in Cairo, according to his LinkedIn page. And at Google, the page says, he was charged with "driving the growth of Google B2C/B2B products across MENA" and "evangelizing the Internet in the region, and help growing the Arabic content".Earlier this month, Ghonim tweeted that he was traveled to Qatar for an "internet freedom forum" hosted by Al Jazeera, and last week, in a post to the microblogging site, he said he was joining the Egyptian protests against the wishes of some close to him. "Despite all the warnings I got from my relative and friends, I'll be there on #Jan25 protests. Anyone going to be in Gam'et Dewal protest?" the post reads."The Egyptian government started to take really stupid actions that will result in nothing but encouraging more people to protest," he said on January 26. "A government that is scared from #Facebook and #Twitter should govern a city in Farmville but not a country like #Egypt".His tweets stopped the next day, just after he urged readers to pray for Egypt. "Very worried as it seems that government is planning a war crime tomorrow against people," he said. "We are all ready to die".Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company told the WSJ: "We care deeply about the safety of our employees."Separately, with Egypt in mind, the company has unveiled a service that lets people tweet via a voice connection. Anyone can tweet simply by leaving a voice mail at one of these international numbers: +16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855. No internet connection is required, and the service will automatically add the hash tag "#egypt".Read Morehttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/31/google_exec_missing_in_egypt/
