Graph: tweets from Apple HQ

Map showing tweets sent over the past hour from Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California, the Site of Apples HQ. Click on map for closer look.

Each circle represents the location of a tweet. The darker the circle the more tweets from that location. You can clearly make out public areas people are posting from.

UK seems prepared to crack down on social networks regardless of evidence

"Johnny Melfah is said to have posted several messages on a group that had been set up called “Letz start a riot”, encouraging people to riot in Worcester.

Yesterday the chairman of the bench at Worcester magistrates’ court decided to lift restrictions on identification, deeming it in the public interest, despite the teenager not having entered a plea.

A week ago the Crown Prosecution Service issued guidance to prosecutors to ask courts to “lift the anonymity of a youth defendant when they believe it is required in the public interest that the youth be identified”.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said that she wanted as many of the young criminals involved in the riots as possible to be identified. More than 1,400 people have now appeared in court charged with riot-related offences."

UK riots: 16-year-old accused of inciting riot on Facebook loses anonymity - Telegraph

'via Blog this'

So the courts have spoken, not only will they treat posting to social networks as equal to actual disorder and violence offence, but they seem determined to make it even worse. All part of a pattern of crack downs on social networks in the west.

But is this real or just scapegoating. During the Arab Spring many people questioned the degree to which social networks like Twitter and Facebook were really making things happen. The very different paths of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria prove that history and culture are larger factors than technology in shaping the modern age.

The London riots were a feast for analysis firms like our own to understand tweeting role in social events, a recent study has confirmed what we assumed from our own work, that twitter was responding not leading the protest.

"A preliminary study of a database of riot-related tweets, compiled by the Guardian, appears to show Twitter was mainly used to react to riots and looting.



Timing trends drawn from the data question the assumption that Twitter played a widespread role in inciting the violence in advance, an accusation also levelled at the rival social networks Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger."

Twitter study casts doubts on ministers' post-riots plan | UK news | The Guardian

'via Blog this'

So if the evidence is clearly against social networks impacting criminality why are governments willing to crack down and kill the messenger? We see several key factors:

• The public clearly believes that social networks are the problem and the government is just following public opinion.
• Governments don't really understand social networks and are afraid of the chaotic element they add to social discourse.
• Governments don't like the idea that everyone can publish content and want to set up strict enforced limits to what is allowed, even in democratic societies.

Heavy tweeting coming coming from Tahrir

We are seeing some very high tweeting from Tahrir Square in Cairo. Cairo is seeing a Madrid like camping protest, with rises and falls in tweeting but nothing like earlier this year.

Update August 3rd: We are seeing a surge in tweeting at and near Tahrir as Mubarak stands trial.

Tweeting coming from Oslo explosion site

There seems to have been a massive car bomb in Oslo





The area near the University Hospital is seeing very high tweeting.

Tweeting levels from London pensions protest

Today, June 30th there will be a demonstration starting from Lincoln's Inn Field London. We will be tracking the intensity of on the ground real world tweets coming from the location all day. You can follow the progress of the protest using the clima.me frame. Click here and navigate around the map to see the levels of high density and normal density tweeting coming from the location.

We are following the #DayOfAction on twitter for information, and we have created a Storify article on the site.

As the protest moves across London we are seeing rather high elevation in tweeting levels.

The limits of social media in understanding protests

Above is the tweeting intensity for geo-tagged tweets coming from the protest site in Athens. Though the number rises and falls with major events on the ground, Athens generally has low levels of tweeting.



Compare this to a protest site in Barcelona Spain. Though the crowds in Athens are as bigger if not bigger than those in Spain the levels of tweeting in Spain are far higher than in Greece.

Levels of tweeting vary wildly between cultures. Greeks are less likely to tweet with mobile smartphones than Spanish. This can be in part accounted for by income. But also do not forget that Greeks could quickly start tweeting in the way Arab have since the Arab Awakening.

A very key thing to remember is that Greeks don't need to tweet. Why, well here are some key observations:

• Protests in Greece are more organized, they involve more established groups within civil society like trade unions. They have the ability to organize and communicate that pre-date twitter.
• Protest in Greece are more acknowledged by the local and global media. One interesting fact is that Greek protesters have been flashing green laser light at the press core. The explanation I hear is that the protesters are not happy with the way the events are covered in the Greek press. Outside of Greece the global media has paid huge amounts of attention to Greece. In Spain many of the acompada protesters felt they were being ignored. In Bahrain people felt as though the global media had ignored them. In these cases people who feel neglected by established media will turn to new media to try and get the message out. This neglect of protests is not a case in Greece, where every action of the Greek protests is carried live around the world.
• Protests in Greece contain a larger band of age demographics. Unlike Spain the Greek protests have drawn people from almost every demographic in the country. And unlike Egypt Greece is a European country with an older population. Therefore a large part of the demonstrations are people are not digital natives.
• Protests have often been violent. Though there are debates of who started the fighting Greece protests have seen more confrontation. Tweeting is generally more active in large peaceful protests.

Tweeting from Wembley Stadium

Tweeting from Wembley Stadium today where today Manchester United faces Barcelona in Champions League final. Should be a good test to see how people tweet under the influence of alcohol. Despite massive crowds in London so far we are not seeing impressive levels of tweeting.

Use the High Density by clicking the Use High Density button.

In this mode you are see a view of a smaller range, intended for more densely populated areas.

You can see the area around Wembley is producing a cloud of geo-tagged tweets during the game. This same geo-tagged tweet cloud will float over almost all major event.

Is Bahrain revolt staying alive on Twitter?

Photo By Gail Orenstein for the Web 3.0 Lab/Clima

We have been tracking geo-tagged tweeting coming from Bahrain for some time. We are seeing a very recent rise in tweeting in some Shia area in Bahrain and not others. We are also seeing a continued flow of tweets on associated hashtags in twitter. The 14Feb is an active hashtag for the opposition and remains very active with a constant flow of tweets. Though the regime has destroyed the lulu round about, once a proud monument to the nation, tweeps are keeping lulu alive as a popular hashtag of the opposition.

While on the Bahrain hashtag one is more likely to get trolled by a supporter of the regime. Typical points that are repeated are:

• Global media is biased and giving false reports,
• People outside of Bahrain are bulled by people claiming to be in Bahrain,
• Iran is blamed for the opposition,
• the majority status of the Shia population is falsely denied,
• claims of terrorism by protesters are made.

luluroundabout2 lulu

#bahrain #14feb نصر الله : لو ان اوباما مدح حزب الله لكانت مشكلة هناك مشكلة فى حزب الله لأن الشيطان يمدح الشيطان

1 minute ago

SanabisNews BAHRAIN

صوره أحد المعتقلين من قريه السنابس (رياض) #Alsanabis #14Feb #Bahrain#BPR #RNA

1 minute ago

14FebTV صوت الشعب - البحرين

السيد نصر الله : هناك بلدان دخلت أوضاع صعبة مثل ليبيا واليمن والبحرين وأهل كل بلد أعلم بكيفية مواجهة أوضاعهم وحل مشاكلهم . #Bahrain #14feb

1 minute ago

14FebTV صوت الشعب - البحرين

السيد نصر الله : هناك بلدان دخلت أوضاع صعبة مثل ليبيا واليمن والبحرين وأهل كل بلد أعلم بكيفية مواجهة أوضاعهم وحل مشاكلهم . #Bahrain #14feb

1 minute ago

PeaceStorm Nasser Alkhalifa

اوباما قالها بوضوح علاقتى بالسعوديه قويه واستراتجيه , خلي ايران تنفعكم يا خونه يا انجاس #bahrain #14feb #GCC #ksa #mideast

2 minutes ago

luluroundabout2 lulu

@

#bahrain #14feb @kuwaityah80 أل سعود وأسرائيل وجهان لعملة واحدة

3 minutes ago

roro_BPR بنت الهاشمي

@

@MohamedAlAhmed المتهمين الـ21 يحصلون على معامله جيده؟وين بتروح من رب العالمين؟نسيت ان فيه احساب؟ ياويلك #Bahrain #14feb #NoToExcution

4 minutes ago

luluroundabout2 lulu

#bahrain #14feb ما دام نصر الله يدعوا لنا بالنصر فنحن لا نخاف من الطغاة أحرار 14 فبراير

5 minutes ago

Ebalsaffar iEbr

سيدحسن نصرالله يخاطب النظام الخليفي:يا المقفل لووول #Bahrain #14feb #BHN

7 minutes ago

kateeba313 Kateeba

‏أنا بحريني سني و أعرف الحقيقة - ウォール‏ | Facebook

أخوتي أحرار البحرين أدعموا هذه الصفحة.. أنا سني وأعرف الحقيقة #feb14 #14feb #bahrain #lulu #q8 #ebahrain #ksa #gcc

8 minutes ago

luluroundabout2 lulu

#bahrain #14feb الشعب يريد الحرية للبحرين من الأحتلال السعودي

8 minutes ago

»

woroood33 worood almosawi

الدراز : الان 5 اجياب تخرج من القرية من مدخل البريد في الحيدريه #14feb#Bahrain

10 minutes ago

Sadly the Bahrain regime is able to tell the same lies on twitter that Gadaffi tells on his state controlled media. But the opposition continues to function and get its message out, and via twitter a large number of people in the west are able to keep informed about the plight of a very brave effort to gain civil rights that continues in the Gulf State.