Socialising in 2013

Social media has become such and fundamental part of our day to day lives, connecting us to our friends, family and the greater world. People share their entire lives on Facebook and tweet at the drop of a hat. In fact, if you want to hear any piece of news from anywhere around the world, you are most likely to hear about it first on Twitter.

Another benefit of social media was it’s use as a marketing tool. Social media provides the possibility of an enormous audience in the shape of followers, and its much cheaper than the traditional forms of marketing. So as more and more people tweet and post things online, more and more people are discovering the joys of sharing every minute thought that pops into their heads, no matter how stupid it might be.

The problem with tweeting without a second thought is that you forget that with all this access to social media platforms, comes a new responsibility. For one thing, were you aware that you can be held legally and personally accountable for things you post on Twitter and Facebook?

In 2012, Jessica Dos Santos tweeted: ”Just, well took on an arrogant and disrespectful k****r inside Spar. Should have punched him, should have.”

Tshidi Thamana responded: “…I wish all whites had been killed when you sang ‘Kill the Boer’, then we wouldn’t have to experience @JessicaLeandra’s racism.”

The SA Human Rights Commission was fielding complaints against both of the users and eventually ruled that both individuals must issue a public apology and actively work towards the promotion of equality, tolerance and respect for diversity through various projects. The commission then warned citizens to be vigilant  about posting derogatory and hateful content on social networks.

I was sitting at work when I got an e-mail informing all employees that they need to be aware of the company’s policy on social networks. After reading it, I began thinking about all the risk people put themselves into every day without realising it. In South Africa, the laws surrounding freedom of speech have become a somewhat murkier subject over the last couple of years, so here’s what you need to know and keep in mind when you start sending that text.

The areas of risk include:

- Hate speech: Where do you draw the line between freedom of expression and hate speech??

[Hate Speech: Propaganda for war; Incitement of imminent violence; Advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm]

- Defamation: If you are communicating to one person or more, and it makes another person look bad, whether it is a caricature, cartoon, sketch or photograph, you can be accused of defamation.

[Defamation: The wrongful, intentional publication of a defamatory statement about a person.]

Facebook “friend posted: I wonder too what happened to the person who I counted as a best friend for 15 years, and how this behaviour is justified. Remember I see the broken hearted faces of your girls every day. Should we blame the alcohol, the drugs, the church, or are they more reasons to not have to take responsibility for the consequences of your own behaviour? But mostly I wonder whether, when you look in the mirror in your drunken testosterone haze, do you still see a man?

The person who posted this was sued by his “friend and the courts decided that this post was an infringement of the friend’s privacy and reputation and ordered that all such posts be removed as well as the payment of all the friends legal costs.

- Privacy: Since all rights and freedoms must balance, how do you balance the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy and dignity? Because privacy is a personal concept and the scope of the person’s personal space shrinks when they enter communal retains and social interaction, posts on social networks cannot attract privacy protection.

This means if you post something inflammatory and include a disclaimer, it will not be good enough in public domain.

McIntosh Polela tweeted: “I trust that JubJub’s supporters gave him a jar of Vaseline to take to prison.” With the disclaimer: ”My tweets are for my tweeps”. He later had to post a public apology, stating: ”My tweet about JubJub on Tuesday nite was in poor taste. I profoundly regret posting & hereby retract. Je suis desole.”

- Endorsement: When you tell the public that you approve of the product/service and you’re happy to be associated with it, you have endorsed it. You may incur legal liability if your use of a person’s name or image creates the false impression that the product has been endorsed or recommended by that person.

This would apply to those who would use social networks for marketing purposes.

- Passing off: This means representing that your goods or services are those of another, or are associated with the goods or services of another. For example, have you also seen all those spoof Facebook pages?

- Copyright and IP infringement: This gives the owner of the work exclusive rights to do certain things with that product for commercial or personal gain. If a 3rd party wants to use or publish that work, they need the owners permission.

[Copyright: The legal protection of certain kinds of works such as photographs, paintings, poems, books and music.]

NB: Just because material is in the public domain doesn’t mean you can use/modify/copy it!

An example is Pinterest, which relies heavily on copyrighted material to generate traffic. Keep in mind that most social networks have a “Terms of Service” section that usually says something to the effect of “the user takes on liability for potential infringement claims which may be brought by an author for content that the user posts”.

If you’ve ever used Pinterest, you’ll know that the more content gets “repined”, the more it loses sight of where it originated. As a result of all the trouble, Pinterest developed a “NOPIN” option available to authors or owners.

- Contract: Most social networking platforms allow you to buy and sell things via a post or tweet etc. The traditional laws that apply to contracts also apply to online contracts, so you still need contractual capacity, consensus (offer & acceptance), validity and formalities (the thing, the price, method of payment, transfer of goods etc.)

So if you advertise a car for sale on Facebook, and your friend posts a reply offering to buy it for a certain price, and you accept this offer, this is a binding contract!

- Litigation: Did you know that social networks can now be used for litigation?? A South African court has allowed the legal service of court papers to be made via Facebook and in Australia, they can access you Facebook profile to use its contents as evidence.

- Work place issues: Employees have certain rights and limitations in respect of social networking. Although employers may not discriminate against an employee on the grounds of sexual orientation, HIV status, political opinion, conscience or religion, recruiters often check all your social networks when doing research on you before an interview. Keep in mind what impression you want them to have of you.

Most companies have a policy on social networking which will allow them to dismiss or otherwise punish you if you post negative comments about your employers, post racial slurs of post material that brings the company into disrepute. Also, if you post material about your employers’ clients or suppliers that could jeopardise the employer or the business in any way.

- Reputational risk

So all in all, THINK before you Tweet people, focus on being accurate rather than being first, check all your facts and the context before you post anything, keep your business and personal matters separate and if you do make a mistake, take responsibility and apologise before anything else.

P.S.: Don’t forget Auto-Correct and the blunders it will create!

Suarez Shocker!

Luis Suarez pulled a Tyson on the world and bit a player?? During a game!??       *Gasp* *Shock* *Horror*

 

So, for those who didn’t hear the news, Liverpool’s Luis Suarez bit someone. He actually opened his mouth and suck his teeth into Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic, leaving him with a bruised arm.

Now the funny thing for me was not that Suarez actually bit someone, but that the world was so suprised!

First, they were suprised and shocked at the incident. [Which happened as Liverpool was losing. Coincidence?]

Second, they were shocked when the English FA decided that a ban longer than the usual three games is warranted.

Third, they were shocked at the severity of the punishment which was eventually handed down, a TEN game ban.

Ivanovic’s response

I’m sorry, did no one realise that this was Luis Suarez we were dealing with here?? This man has a long list of “misdemenours” in football and this isn’t even the first time he’s gotten into trouble for

biting.

In case you weren’t aware, Suarez bit another player in 2010, while playing for Ajax Amsterdam, shortly before signing with Liverpool, for which he got a 7 game ban and a fine from the Dutch FA. [And was dubbed the "Cannibal of Ajax"]

Also in 2010, during the World Cup, he ended up in the headlines for a deliberate handball on the goal line, preventing Ghana’s Dominic Adiyiah from scoring, for which he was sent off. He was later seen celebrating from the sidelines when Ghana missed the awarded penalty.

Then in 2011, he had to serve an 8 game ban and a fine for racially abusing Patrice Evra and when he came back from that ban and played against him, he refused to shaked his hand.

A week later he received a 1 game ban for making “an offensive gesture” to Fulham fans.

In 2012 he got some bad press for refusing to shake hands with Evra of Manchester United.

This is the guy who, after pleading guilty to the bite incident and the charge of violent conduct, denied the claim that the standard punishment is insufficient.

 

After the ruling was announced, Liverpool’s Managing Director, Ian Ayre declared, “Both the club and player are shocked and disappointed at the severity of today’s Independent Regulatory Commission decision. We await the written reasons tomorrow before making any further comment.”

The only thing that shocked and disappointed me was the fact that they thought this was severe! What else is the commission supposed to do when his history shows that he is not learning from the punishments he is given??

The incident led to a lot of bad press and condemnation for Liverpool with fans and the general public alike, all asking for Suarez to be sold at the end of the season, but the management has responded with a resounding no. Despite the damage to their reputation, Liverpool management are adamant that Suarez is a great player (he is currently their leading goal-scorer) and they say that they will work with him and try to manage his anger and discipline because he is a very important player to the club.

“As we keep saying, he signed a new four-year contract last summer and we’d all love to see him here throughout that contract.” said Ayre. “He’s a fantastic player, top scorer and everything we’d want in a striker, so there’s no change there. This is more about getting him back on the right track and it’s largely down to (manager) Brendan now to work with him on that side of his character.”

All in all, I think Suarez has consistently shown himself to be a player willing to do anything in the game. He has a clear disregard for any rules, or conduct laws, as well as for any body that might try to impose any form of discipline. All in all, he is a horrible sportsman and role model, so I don’t see why everyone else was so shocked and suprised, has he not BEEN showing you what kind of person he is??

As one person on the interweb said, “Biting is for raccoons, rats and the rabid.”

In any case, Suarez is appealing the ban and the case will be heard by an Independent Regulatory Commission, so we wait with bated breath…[not!]

 

You can view the video for yourselves at:

Also, Luis Suarez’s Top 5 Most Controversial Moments:

Mourinho’s Unshakeable Faith

Most of the football watching world was shocked, flabbergasted, delighted (for the haters) and heartbroken in the last week, when both Spanish super teams were knocked out of the Champions League in the first leg of the semi-finals.

As if fate was watching and playing a cruel joke, first Barcelona, who have been on top of the football world for a good many years, were shocked when they got the thrashing of their lives from Bayern Munich, coming out with a score of 4-0. This got everyone asking, “is the era of Barca domination finally over?”

The very next day, Real Madrid saw their fate heading in the same direction before Christiano Ronaldo salvaged their dignity with a lone goal. They were beaten 4-1 by Dortmund but with the unshakeable faith of “The Special One”, Jose Mourinho has let the world know that Madrid can still come out of this to be in the final.

When everyone else had already decided that it would be an all-German final, Mourinho let the world know that this war was not over. The next game for Madrid will be on their home turf, the Bernabeu on Tuesday and The Special One has promised the world that they will see a fight from his team.

Jose Mourinho, Real Madrid coach

“I have learnt that anything can happen in football, it will be tough next week, but nothing is impossible and my footballers will try to show that next Tuesday,” said Mourinho. He also congratulated Dortmund, saying that they were the best team by far and that they played better and deserved their victory.

Congratulations have to go to Lewandowski who scored all four goals for Dortmund to become the first player to ever score four goals in a

Champions League semi-final.

Dortmund coach, Jurgen Klopp said that despite the win, his team is still going to exercise caution, stay focused and play their best game in Madrid.

Lewandowski

“…we have to go to Fortuna Duesseldorf, in Bundesliga, then Madrid for the second game and there is still a lot to do. I don’t have the feeling we’re favourites, we produced

an exceptional game against a fantastic team, there could have been worse results and we’d still have to go there, we just want to reach the final,” said Klopp.

So while Dortmund takes the cautious route and practises and Real try to figure out what went wrong, all of Spain, Germany and other global supporters sit on the edge of their seats, because now, without a doubt, it’s anyone’s game.

A Different Order of Reality

Chinua Achebe

The “father of modern African writing”, Chinua Achebe (born Albert Chínụálụmọ̀gụ̀ Àchèbé), best known to the world as the amazing writer of Things Fall Apart, passed away on Friday 22 March, 2013, after a brief illness, at the age of 82. He was born and raised in the Igbo town of Ogidi, Nigeria and began writing as a university student. Soon after graduation, he did a bit of teaching and then he worked for the National Broadcasting Corporation, a faction of the British Broadcasting Company and later helped create the Voice of Nigeria network.

Achebe was not just the writer of such amazing novels as No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987), but also penned poetry, essays, short stories and even children’s books, all based in his native land, Nigeria. What I think most people first fell in love with in his writing was that he painted a real and beautiful picture of Nigeria and Africa, to a world that, up to that point, had been largely ignorant to the reality of what it was like to be African and in Africa.

Chinua Achebe and Nelson Mandela

Some of his stories were set in the Nigeria before independence from British colonial rule, and so they allowed a view into what it was like living in a time when Nigeria didn’t belong to the Nigerians. This included themes revolving around the conflict felt by Nigerians in a time of both traditional African culture and invasive Western values, the bloody civil wars that plagued Nigeria and the pain felt by the Ibo nation of South-Eastern Nigeria from the brutality of military dictators from other Nigerian ethnic groups.

Things Fall Apart was his first novel, published in 1958, and has since sold millions of copies and been translated into over 50 languages. It was the most widely read book in modern African literature, and like most of his subsequent works, this is set in the Ibo countryside and is most loved for its detailed descriptions of the Ibo life, culture and traditions. It went on to become a classic of world literature, something which was virtually unheard of in African literary circles.

Chinua Achebe 2008, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY

In 1998, Nadine Gordimer hailed Achebe as “a novelist who makes you laugh and then catch your breath in horror – a writer who has no illusions but is not disillusioned. From his writing, Achebe became more than just a writer, but also a political activist. He was noted for aiming his criticisms, not only at British colonial rule, but also at African leadership and the citizens who tolerated their corruption and dictatorship.

He has spent most of his adult life living in exile in the United States of America, working as a University Professor, but came back to Nigeria briefly, to be involved in the politics of the independence and rejoining the of the region of Biafra from Nigeria. He soon became frustrated with the levels of corruption and decided to take himself out of the equation, then a car accident left him disabled, so he moved back to the US.

His most recent work was There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, which is a memoir of the new nation that was Biafra, told from Biafra’s cultural ambassador. It tells of the Nigerian civil war (The Biafran War) during which Achebe was a roving cultural ambassador able to observer the full horror. It was soon after this that he moved back to the US and has since maintained somewhat of a silence on the events of the war, aside from an interview with Transition magazine, only referring to it through his poetry.

He is most remembered for his unique style of writing, which showed his keen satire, his heavy reliance on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs and oratory.

The literary world has lost a great mind and an even better writer.

RIP Chinua Achebe.

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NaPoWriMo

So, since I started blogging, I’ve been reading about NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month).

Basically, this is a challenge to all writers where you are supposed to spend a whole month writing poetry (one poem a day), and the general idea is that whether you think you have something to write about or not, you write.

You write nonsense if you must, but you write, and soon enough, your writing is supposed to improve. By the time you reach Day 30, your poetry writing skills should be on point. Or at least that’s what I think should be happening.

I’ve never taken part before, but on Thursday 21st, the literary world lost a dear soul in the African literary giant, Chinua Achebe, and I feel that in his memory, who am I to be afraid of NaPoWriMo. For those who are not aware who Chinua Achebe is, look out for another post later on today, don’t miss it because he was truly something special.

So anyway, the month started yesterday and I wrote my first piece of crap, I will continue to stick it out for an added 30 Days, and should I write anything worth looking at twice, I will post it for you to review, until then, please pick up your own pencils and pens (and keyboards) and get to writing. If nothing else, it will improve your vocabulary.

Plus, who knows, you might be able to count it as a team activity on your next CV.

Mwaah!

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The best bus driver ad of all time. Hilarious.

Reblogged from Khaya Dlanga's life on the "internets". All on one blog.:

It's honest and funny.

African Queen

Ondria Hardin in Numero magazine

I recently read about a bit of controversy with Numéro magazine because they featured the above picture in an editorial.

The picture features 16-year-old, blond-haired, blue-eyed model, Ondria Hardin, who was covered in bronzer for the shoot. The magazine was then criticised for their decision to use a white model instead of “a more ethnic” one. This went so far that the magazine had to issue a statement apologising, saying:

“The artistic statement of the photographer Sebastian Kim, author of this editorial, is in line with his previous photographic creations, which insist on the melting pot and the mix of cultures, the exact opposite of any skin color based discrimination.  Numéro has always supported the artistic freedom of the talented photographers who work with the magazine to illustrate its pages, and has not took part in the creation process of this editorial….Considering the turmoil caused by this publication, the Management of Numéro Magazine would like to apologize to anyone who may have been offended by this editorial.”

Needless to say, a debate sprung up faster than you could say “bingo!”. Reading through the comments underneath this story, it was interesting to see all the different view points.

• Some African American readers were offended because they felt this was a representation of “blackface“. This, is a form of theatrical makeup popular in the 19th century, where performers created a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The usual stereotype being the “happy-go-lucky darkie on the plantation” or the “dandified coon”. (Can we really compare this to blackface?)
• Another reader explained that people are offended because they chose to use a blonde, blue-eyed, American model in bronzer, to represent a continent that is predominantly black. (Should they then have used an African model?)
• A (presumably white) reader asked the question, Why are black women mad when they make a white model look more African, but white women are not mad when African women are modelled with blonde weaves and bleached skins?
• A few other African American readers felt that, whereas “blackface” was used to caricature and therefore make fun of Africans, this was not intended in the same way. One said that, seeing as the model looks gorgeous and African American women have been using make up to look “whiter” for years, this shows some level of equality and she’s happy to see other races trying to emulate the African look. “Let the white girl play in black makeup! We got more important shit to worry about!” (Is it really a compliment, or does taking it as a compliment show a lack of pride in how you, as an African woman, are portrayed in the media?)
• Another reader felt that this was being blown way out of proportion, because (suprise, suprise), “there are white women born in Africa too!”

That last comment, my favourite one by far, got me thinking…

So maybe she’s not representing a black women. Maybe she’s representing a white, African woman. Maybe she’s representing the idea that, with all the white women tanning and black women bleaching their skins, very soon there will be no difference between us. Or…Maybe she’s representing the blending of cultures and influences that is inevitable in a continent that is full of so many different people. Is it not all in how we choose to see it?

Yes, the white people came to Africa from Europe and the Americas, but how many centuries and how many generations must pass, before their children’s children’s children (who are born of the soil and the unique blended culture), are considered Africans? And if they are considered Africans, why can they not be African queens? Are white people born in Africa going to be considered migrants until the end of time? (the same way a lot of different cultures are still considered foreigners in America today). And if that is the case, how does this viewpoint bode well for Africa’s children and their future in any way??

Africa’s story, is so full of blood and anger and hatred and division…so can’t we, just this once, choose to see the glass as half full?

My question for today is, why can’t little black girls AND little white girls born of this continent, dream of being African Queens?

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