Free Talk Live

A year ago, 22-year-old Kwame Dancy was shot and killed. The headline: "Twitter Argument Leads to Alleged Murder." The story even quotes his poor mother as saying, "... that's crazy. I don't know what's going on with that Twitter thing."

What's going on with that Twitter thing is this: The news media always need a bogeyman.

The Tweets, Tics And Turns Of Twitter Politics

The tweet might go something like this:

Political convo on Twitter is more opinionated, more negative. Diff from that in blogs or lamestream media, sez new study by Pew. Like duh!

A former Ottawa Hills police officer was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday for the shooting of a motorcyclist during a May, 2009, traffic stop.

Thomas White, 27, was convicted May 14 in Lucas County Common Pleas Court of felonious assault with a gun specification for the shooting of Michael McCloskey, Jr. A jury deliberated for about six hours after a week-long trial before reaching a verdict.

Social networking giant Twitter has released a new report outlining all subpoenaed, court ordered, and search warranted requests made by the U.S. government for private information about the site's users throughout the past year. And based on the figures, not only is the overall number of such requests steadily expanding, but Twitter is also increasingly being coerced into releasing this confidential data without legitimate probable cause or warrant.

So, Pennsylvania's AG Tom Corbett, who just won the Republican primary nomination for Governor on Tuesday, is pressuring Twitter to reveal the names and contact info of two Twitter users who have been critical of him. Will the fascism never end? Oopps.... better watch what I say online, since I live in PA. Obersturmbannführer Corbett might target me next....

San Francisco, unlike most other cities in Silicon Valley, has a 1.5% payroll tax. And even more stunning is that they consider gains on stock options part of payroll, meaning that any San Francisco based company going public or being acquired could get hit with a massive tax bill in the tens of millions of dollars.

IRS to monitor Facebook, Twitter for tax cheats

Is the IRS about to get too close for comfort? New reports brought to light by one privacy and data security expert suggest that this tax filing season the Internal Revenue Service may be monitoring social media for any clues of tax cheats.

According to Kristen Mathews, a partner attorney at law firm Proskauer Rose LLP who specializes in privacy and data security, there are reports that the IRS will be checking into individual Facebook and Twitter accounts for improprieties.

Back in January, a man from South Yorkshire was arrested after jokingly tweeting a threat to blow up an airport. This summer, the man was convicted of “menace” for his tweet and fined £1,000. The court dismissed his appeal on every count.

"Social media is ill-suited to promoting real social change, argues Malcolm Gladwell in this article from The New Yorker magazine. He deftly debunks conventional wisdom surrounding the impact of Twitter, Facebook and other social media in driving systemic social change, comparing them to the organizational strategies of the 1960s civil rights movement.