Chevron's New Ad Campaign Hijacked Immediately

So Chevron launches a new ad campaign and immediately the the social-media savy group the Yes men have spun it against the oil giant by producing fake ads from Chevron exposing many of the company's weak points such as this fake BBC interview  which was picked up by Yahoo!News. Chevron is now in a scrambling retreat and trying to save face. They claim they "knew this would happen". If that was the case then why bother even beginning the campaign! This is not the first time Chevron has been targeted by the Yes men but they were obviously not ready for what was going to happen this time.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlUQ2sUti8o&feature=player_embedded

http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/The-Yes-Men-spoof-Chevron-ad-campaign-713253.php

http://www.youtube.com/user/Chevron?gclid=CJOH4tCHvKQCFc9L5QodVV071A&gclid=CN7luajp36QCFQK87QodoBfNKg

Tyler Clementi and the terrible consequenses of vendictive social media

Last Tuesday there was an article in USA TODAY concerning the implications of social Media being thrust upon us and how the results can be both very positive and very negative. A portion of the story was dedicated to Tyler Clementi. Clementi commited suicide after an intimate encounter between he and another man was recorded by his Rutgers oommate and broadcast online against his will. The roomate then used Twitter to announce that he intended to do so again. While social media can do so much good to connect people it is a shame that there are those who will use it to so maliciously attack others. Social media is so deeply ingrained in this tragic event that Clementi's final act was a Facebook post declaring that he was about to jump in the George Washington Bridge sent from his cell phone. This really punctuates our recent class discussion about choosing VERY carefully what you choose to share online. Maybe Tyler's roomate did not intend for Tyler to kill himself but he obviously did mean to do harm by posting it online and he had to consider this as one of the possible outcomes of his actions. I scrutinize very carefully what I publish online becouse I recently found myself tagged in photos with people whom I no longer associate with and I had to remove the tags. It is often not only ourselves we can hurt but others as well, even with the best of intentions.

I beleve that Invasion of Privacy charges have been filed against the roomate Dharun Ravi carrying a maximum of 5 years. Bias charges are also pending

http://www.livingstondaily.com/article/20101011/OPINION01/101011003/DeWayne-Wickham-Social-media-thrusting-us-into-global-town-square

http://www.facebook.com/pages/In-Honor-of-Tyler-Clementi/153517964681258

The lack of USEFUL social media in politics

In watching some political news this week it occured to me that even with the recent wave of politicians using social media to campaign very few politicians are using social media in a very constructive way. I know that Obama used Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace to engage followers and drum up support tin '08 and that is a good start but why are politicians not using these platforms to more directly do what they are elected to do, find out what the people want and be their voice! And why are we as citizens not speaking more directly to our nation's leaders. We have a new, wonderful tool to communicate with and engage others and it's most obvious use is being overlooked!

After Googling Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Mitch McConnell, the only one with a social media link in the top 5 results was Barack Obama's Twitter account. After looking at the websites for  both the Republican Party of KY and Democratic Party of KY there are Facebook and Twitter links on the front page of both but it seems as though they are really doing very little to really engage in convrsation with the public and mostly campaigning and pointing out what the other party is doing wrong. Usual politics I suppose.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Frankfort-KY/Kentucky-Democratic-Party/137078141865
http://www.facebook.com/KYGOP
http://twitter.com/KyDems
http://twitter.com/kygop