Michael Moore back on Facebook and Twitter

Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore has done loads of good, cool stuff over the last couple of years. It took some skill to balance the demands of the Nationalists with the reactionary forces from the Tories and Labour and push ahead with the Scotland Act. Even as recently as last Christmas, the whole venture, giving Scotland the biggest devolution of power since the Act of Union in 1707, was said to be dead in the water. Mike kept going with it and ensured the Act passed both Holyrood and Westminster. A good job well done.

He also completely wrong footed Alex Salmond over the Independence Referendum  and got some proper dialogue underway.

With all that going on, it's hardly surprising he's not found the time to do much in the way of social media. It was good to see him back on Twitter for the first time in something like 745 days. His Twitter feed is pretty human and interesting. I remember when he did a 4 day sponsored walk for the Special Care Baby Unit where his daughter was cared for a few years back and tweeted all the way through it. He also has a new Facebook page to keep people up to date with his work. You can, of course, also read his weekly column on Liberal Democrat Voice. 

For pete's sake, Facebook, find yourself some manners!

I've been finding it a bit weird when I've been trying to find people's email addresses on Facebook over the past few days that they've had a special @facebook.com address.

Turns out that it's happened to all of us without us knowing. In order to direct more traffic to the site and therefore generate more advertising revenue, they've allocated us new emails and displayed them on our timelines. All without so much as a tiny bit of warning.

I'm sorry, Facebook, but that's just bloody rude. If you'd sent me a message asking if I'd mind and explaining  to me the benefits of having email integrated into your Facebook message system, I might have been quite happy to let it happen. I suspect it will have advantages for people.

I have, however punished Facebook for their rudeness by hiding this new address from the world and putting my old one back. If you wanted to do the same, MSNBC have very kindly told us how.

Facebook are now using automatic facial recognition - but it's easy to turn off

Yet again, Facebook have introduced a measure which really interferes with our privacy without telling us.

They've introduced a feature which allows facial recognition software to suggest to you which of your friends they could tag in their photos. And to them, of course, what pictures of you they tag.

That does not excite me. If my friends want to tag me in their photos, that's for them to decide for themselves. I don't like the idea that Facebook could suggest it to them - and potentially to people that I don't know. And there's obviously the potential for errors to be made.

I have therefore turned the feature off. It took me a while to figure it out, but it's actually quite simple. This article tells you exactly how.

While I was at it, I also disabled the feature that enables people to check me into places. I think if the world is going to know where I am to the nearest millimetre, then I should be the one who chooses whether to tell them.

So, now you know - and the choice is yours.

Facebook can often be quite arbitrary in its decisions. It considers photos of nursing mothers posted on users' pages to be obscene and it has now, according to Life Begins, taken against links to a website called One World Birth. I haven't gone through One World Birth in too much detail, but something associated with people like Michel Odent and Sheila Kitzinger can't be bad.

I wish Facebook would give us plenty warning and instructions for opt out when they do these things, though, and not just sneak them out. Its usefulness as a medium of communication means that it's indispensable to us, and they know it. I guess we just have to stay aware of what they are up to - and publicise it when they do things like this. And explain that it does matter when a commercial organisation abuses your privacy.

My Favourite Facebook Fan pages #sp11

I just thought I'd go through some of my favourite election related Facebook fan pages and invite you to take a look if you hadn't already done so.

First of all, there's Tavish Scott's which is being regularly updated with news from the campaign trail. I know he's off to the Science Festival in Edinburgh today with Alex Cole Hamilton so hopefully there will be some news on that later.

Then there's Willie Rennie for the Scottish Parliament.  The former MP for Dunfermline is hoping to become a list MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife. If you take a look, you'll see why campaigning on Saturday ended up with him in pain. I very cruelly burst out laughing when I read it. Not big or clever.

Then there's the Save our Police campaign page giving all the latest news from our campaign to stop Labour, SNP and Conservatives centralising our police force, costing nearly £100 million and potentially the jobs of 3000 or 4000 police officers on the beat.

Support Iain Smith's awesome campaign to retain North East Fife.

Turning to the AV Referendum, the same people who did the "if we can get Rage against the machine to number 1, we can get the Lib Dems into office" page last year have done this one "Yes to alternative vote on 5th May".

There's also the official Yes to Fairer Votes campaign. 

Just a wee selection to whet your appetites.................

SNP's online own goal emphasises their irrelevance

I have to thank the SNP for making me laugh this afternoon. This official tweet from them shows how they just don't get it.

If you follow the link, it takes you to this barely literate press release which includes the phrase

"This is an embarrassing blunder for Jim Murphy an epic fail".

As my friend Graeme commented "Perhaps the SNP should learn how to construct sentences before they criticise."

The point of their press release was to claim the Facebook Generation which Jim Murphy had said were represented by Labour, for themselves, which totally misses the point of social networking.

It's so arrogant to claim an entire group of people for yourself. Facebook is made up of millions of people with different beliefs, goals and aspirations. Where the SNP and Labour often go wrong in using social networking is that they fail to realise that the process of communication is meant to be two way. It's not there to tell people what to do, it's there to have a conversation with them.

Compare and contrast to the Liberal Democrat presence on Facebook and Twitter. Instinctively we relish and enjoy the dialogue with people. MPs like Alistair Carmichael, Jo Swinson and Willie Rennie all have meaningful (and also more relaxed) discussions about local, national and international issues with their Facebook and Twitter friends. For thousands of people, this has opened up a whole new way of communicating with their MP. Facebook helps build a rapport which can make it easier for someone to approach the MP to ask for help - and they do, often. If you're going to serve people well, you need to be as accessible and approachable as possible.

It's quite amazing that the SNP is taking up bandwidth talking about this kind of stuff today of all days. I mean, we've just been told that the Easter Bunny's bringing us all a tax hike, people in rural areas particularly have not been helped at all by phasing in another fuel tax rise, not one person has been helped to find affordable housing and those on housing benefit who live in areas where rents are high have been even further shafted by Labour. You would think that the SNP would comment on the Budget, not fight like ferrets in a sack about who owns Facebook.

Before you say anything, I can write about this sort of stuff if I want. I'm in no way officially representing the Lib Dems and if I want to make observations about trashy things, then that's nobody's business but my own.

Today's poor showing from the SNP is yet more evidence of why they are irrelevant at Westminster.

Jo Swinson gets credit for use of Facebook and Twitter

I'm glad to see that Jo Swinson has been praised for the way she uses Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with her constituents.

I enjoy seeing her tweets coming in from Prime Minister's Questions, giving her perspective on what's going on, recounting something that we tv viewers wouldn't see. I like the way she asks for opinions on various issues via Facebook and Twitter. Both she and Sandra Gidley have recently asked for suggestions for Parliamentary questions, too. Jo has also been part of the Speakers' conference on diversity, aka how do we get the House of Commons looking less white, male and middle aged and she's tweeted from their meetings.

Her use of social networking gives an as it happens view of the life of an MP - whether she's speaking in Parliament or visiting a business in her constituency. She also shares some of her private life with us - I know, for example, that she went to see the new Harry Potter last night and was even happier to do so knowing that Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry, has said he supports the Lib Dems.

Don't for a minute, though, think that Jo is so welded to her keyboard that she's given up on the face to face stuff. She is one of the hardest working, dedicated people I've ever met and she spends pretty much every spare moment knocking on doors in East Dunbartonshire. I know people who moved there just over two weeks ago and already they've had a visit from one of the Swinson Team.

All credit to Jo for using technology to make herself more accessible. Jo's informality and approachability both in person and online is very genuine. I think part of the success of the way she uses these things is that you get the real Jo, however you talk to her.

Facebook gets in a lather about breastfeeding

Hat tip to Morgan for re-alerting us to the issue of Facebook deleting photographs of nursing mothers posted to members' individual photo albums on the social networking site.

I fail to see how a breast, mostly obscured by the back of the baby's head, could be offensive to anybody. And if some people do have an issue with it then they don't have to look at them.

It's time for Facebook to grow up and be more discerning about what it considers to be obscene.

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In Praise of Facebook

There is no doubt at all that Facebook represents a way to waste a great deal of time as I have discovered to my cost. However, there are some great benefits too. I now keep in touch with my cousins in Ireland and Canada on a much more regular basis than I would without it. It's good to be able to see that "David is not an insect but a human being" or that Honor has just sent me some little e-gift to cheer me up.

A few months back I wasted (is it truly a waste if it makes you laugh so much?) a good hour having an argument with two friends about whether sticky back plastic and sellotape are the same thing. Any fool knows that they are completely different, but one friend could not and still does not accept this point. My sister then got in on the act and agreed with my friend. As they both live in the same place, they have now met up and get on very well. In fact, he came for dinner the last time we were up there.

Recently, a random message from one of my friends on Facebook who I didn't know very well, has led to a really good dialogue - we have discovered quite a bit in common. I did know her before, but only vaguely. Some of my very good friends are very close to her and now we seem to be making friends ourselves.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share that with you while waiting for the washing machine to finish its cycle - the sound of spinning in the background would not help the telephone canvassing.