i think this the is the first person who really irked the people who liked to wage war on terror. reporter: among the 15,000 foreign fighters who ve joined the islamist battle fields, shami witness was the most popular twitter feed. there were 2 million hits a month. but the unmasking of its creator has brought shock waves across the web with other so-called fan boys also shutting down for fear of exposure. shami witness was the single-most important english language feed. the fact he was exposed yesterday, thousands of people saw this. and as a result, a number of other people who operate similar accounts have shut them down. they re afraid of being outs. it s going to affect the
today gets us back to what glenn beck was saying in the beginning about uniting using television to unite, not divide. pope francis is putting on his papal media critic hat in a message published on thursday he said the media can help us feel closer to one another, and he called the internet a gift from god. but the pope identified problems too. he wrote, the speed with which information is communicated exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgment. and this does not make for more balanced and proper forms of self-expression. the variety of opinions being aired can be seen as helpful. but it also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas or political and economic interests. the world of communications can help us either to expand our knowledge or to lose our bearings. the desire for digital connectivity can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbors, from those closest to us. we should not overlook t
hope you didn t see. it s a twitter message that was published by cnn brk, this network s most popular twitter feed. i thought it was inappropriate and i wonder if you at home agree or not. here s what it said. 14-year-old girl stabbed. her little sister 40 times, police say. the reason why will shock you. the alleged reason is that the girl didn t think her little sister sufficiently appreciated all the things she did for her. this is what s known on the internet as an upworthy style headline. upworthy headlines are emotional, they re to the point, they often persuade to you click with a phrase like this reason why will shock you. or this will blow your mind. but the headline shocked me for all the wrong reasons. i m all for experimentation on social media. you know that. and i m glad cnn s trying new things. but this one went too far, i think. in fact, there was so much backlash i think more people ended up seeing that tweet than are actually watching this show right now. that
and they should. i e-mailed a spokesman to ask if cnn s social media team stands by the message and i was told cnn strives to be tasteful while navigating the social news environment. by the way, here s what i think is probably the bigger problem with all these upworthy style headlines. if everything blows your mind, soon nothing s going to blow your mind. here s another media mistake that involves twitter. the progressive group media matters, which keeps very, very close tabs on fox news, noticed this graphic on wednesday s edition of the conservative talk show the five. it says gop south carolina senator tim scott is the only african-american in the u.s. senate. co-host andrea tarantos compounded the mistake by saying out loud that scott was the only black u.s. senator. now, that s bad. but this made it better. the other black u.s. senator, democrat cory booker, retweeted the fox graphic with a one-word caption whoops. senator booker, that s a good way to make sure fox reme
been the inability of my message to pen traetrate the republicane so they feel persuaded they re not the caricature you see on fox news or rush limbaugh but i m somebody who is interested in solving problems and is pretty practical and that actually a lot of the things we put in place worked better than people might think. and as long as there s that gap between perceptions of me within the average republican primary voter and the reality, it s hard for folks like john boehner to move too far in my direction. now, surely the president knew that fox news would pounce on that. i got out my stopwatch when this quote surfaced. by my count seven different shows on the network spent a combined 26 minutes chewing on obama s comment and emphasizing how unfair it was. let me borrow from shakespeare for a moment. the lady doth protest too much. maybe fox will ask the president to defend his point of view next sunday because bill o reilly will be interviewing obama live during the super bowl p