January 25, 2012

The Pope commands you to get off the Net

By Craig Regan

Holy smoke! The Australian newspaper online reports The Pope wants people using the Internerds to chill out just a tad.

Pope Benedict XVI hailed the benefits of silent reflection to stop being "bombarded" by information from the internet but said social networks could be useful modes of communication.

"People today are frequently bombarded with answers to questions they have never asked and to needs of which they were unaware," the Pope said.

That quote’s scarily reminiscent of ex-US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld’s pronouncement about “known knowns” but we’ll move on.

He’s not urging people to stop typing in caps. Just to give their Blackberries a break.

Easier said than done.

There is a Papal Twitter feed but it’s not really a happening place. His Holiness has tweeted six times in eight months.

A vision of the Pope surfing the Net takes a bit of conjouring. I wonder if he’s ever stumbled across this site promoting merchandise like the Pope Soap On a Rope?

 

Jan 25, 2012 12:14:06 PM | communications, Future of media, Journalism, media, public relations, Religion, Social Media, Web/Tech, Weblogs

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Operation Global Black-Out - a stunt or real? <p>By <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank">Elizabeth Coad</a><br /><br />The internet activist group ‘Anonymous’ plan to take down Facebook at 12am eastern standard time on 28 January 2012. Or maybe not.<br /> <br /> Alleged members of the group posted a You Tube Video overnight calling for people worldwide to join the ‘Greatest Internet Protest - the first official Cyber War’.<br /> <br /> In the YouTube video they provide instructions on how to disable your local Facebook server. They claim that if enough people participate and simultaneously disable all 60,000 worldwide Facebook servers the system will collapse. They also claim you can’t get caught!</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="420" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oVSQ3JIgIXE" height="315"></iframe>&nbsp;</p> <p style="text-align: left;"><br /> Called Operation Blackout this latest call to join their protest action or ‘hacktivism’ by members of the online community. As they profile in the You Tube clip, the group have previously hacked the CBS and Warner’s Bros websites amongst other sites.<br /> <br /> Anonymous is a decentralised community that employs leaderless resistance which is a political resistance strategy in which independent groups and individuals, challenge an established adversary, such as a government.</p> <p style="text-align: left;">In this case their protest is centered on the now-stalled US Government's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and their desire to uphold the Internet rights for people worldwide. As their You Tube video states “An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people, and the Government of the United States”.<br /> <br /> This latest video posting could be just a splintered subset of the community or in fact a hoax. Other members of Anonymous also tweeted from their @AnonOps Twitter feed that they would not attack Facebook. Although as their motto states: "We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."<br /> <br /> Regardless of the outcome, the YouTube posting last night and other recent videos are some of the best entertainment on the internet – bring on the cyber war!<br /> <br /></p> <p class="asset asset-link">&nbsp;</p>
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