Comments on: Twitter 2; Mainstream media 0 – Lessons of Trafigura and Gateley

By: Stephen Gateley aftermath – it won’t go away « The Full Catastrophe

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:35:55 +0000

[...] The has been a huge, and I mean HUGE, ruckus over this article. The reaction was sift with the Guardian at the forefront. Here’s an Australian take on it. [...]

By: Media watch on Steven Gateley « The Full Catastrophe

Media watch on Steven Gateley « The Full Catastrophe — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:32:18 +0000

[...] This article started a fuss and a half. This was the reaction in the Guardian. Here’s an Australian take on it. [...]

By: Simon Julian

Simon Julian — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:31:42 +0000

Unfortunately while I entirely applaud the positive outcomes outlined above from the movements of the past week, I have to agree with Julian Assange’s comments that characterising the Trafigura affair as a ‘win for free speech’ is missing the point.

While I think that Twitter especially has become a force for good as far as outing issues like the Trafigura gag order, the notoriously fickle nature of the Twitterverse means that the whole affair is slowly sliding south without having really accomplished the main goal of the protesters, which was the removal of the gag order itself. Not wanting to detract from the fact that Trafigura were forced into releasing information about the whole affair and going public, just saying that a smart debate is important, not chest-beating and self congratulations that miss the nub of the issue.

My admiration for (and involvement in) Twitter doesn’t change, however it is important to remember that Twitter follows the same rules as the rest of our social interactions – they’re fickle, they’re generally led by specific groups of alpha individuals, they’re quick to move on to the next discussion and they can be all of vain, stupid, arrogant and thoughtless. Any discussion of this nature should always be a balance of self congratulation and learning.

Bloody hell that all sounded holier- than-thou didn’t it…might have to go off and tweet about Glee now to balance that up…

By: Simon Heath

Simon Heath — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:56:37 +0000

Love the title – absolute score to Twitter and again proving that the media landscape has changed for good. I’m based in the UK and run a social media agency and have been following this closely, it’s examples like these that will speed up adoption of Twitter and social media in general, where it hasn’t already.

Good piece. I’ve written a blog about Jan Moir and social media here: http://bit.ly/4kEfej

Thanks
Simon

By: Paul Yole

Paul Yole — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:18:40 +0000

Tim, your typing is getting worse! Good story though.

By: Dirk Singer

Dirk Singer — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:26:16 +0000

Absolutely – it’s been a week that’s again answered the question of what Twitter is good for.

In fact it was 3-0, there is also the case of the London Underground staff member who verbally abused an elderly passenger who had the misfortune of being caught in a door (http://bit.ly/4kpmBY).

Unfortunately for Transport for London, a blogger called Jonathan MacDonald was on the platform and filmed the whole thing. Jonathan filmed it on Thursday, by Friday morning it was on Twitter and Friday afternoon the front page of the Standard