White House Joins Facebook, MySpace, Twitter

theodp writes "The official White House Blog called the move WhiteHouse 2.0 as the Obama administration unveiled its membership in a trio of the social-networking leaders: Facebook (157,606 fans and counting), MySpace (174,817 friends and counting) and Twitter (34,612 followers and counting)."

Comments

Facebook

[Shadow Wrought]

My wife and her High School friends use Facebook to stay in touch. Which seems to primarily revolve around sending drinks to each other. Transparency and reachability are certainly good, but, it does make you wonder how many people are going to send "buttery nipples" to the White House, and if that is actually a good thing or not.

Re:Facebook

[houstonbofh]

He is just doing it to meet young girls... I mean he is bringing the Clinton years back. ;)

Re:Facebook

[Culture20]

@POTUS "Tossing the football around the Oval Office"

@CHINA "Oh $&&#*"

@RUSSIA RT @CHINA "Oh $&&#*"

Re:Facebook

[Alinabi]

it does make you wonder how many people are going to send "buttery nipples" to the White House

Let's hope they don't get too many Australian friends then, as that drink has far less palatable name down under

Re:Facebook

[cayenne8]

I wonder if through ANY of this, Obama is going to keep one of his election stump promises, to publish every bill he's going to sign, in its entirety at least 5 days before he signs it?

Re:Facebook

[emag]

I wonder if through ANY of this, Obama is going to keep one of his election stump promises, to publish every bill he's going to sign, in its entirety at least 5 days before he signs it?

Already broken, according to PolitiFact.com. And boy did they get a lot of mail about that and several other ratings, from both sides, which says to me they probably are one of the more impartial reporting sites out there if they're pissing off everyone...

More to the point, I wonder if/when the webfilter @ the site I work at will start allowing Facebook, since it's blocked "as a security threat or inappropriate for government use". I can see the justification now: "But, see, the GSA has signed a deal, and the White House even has a Facebook (and Myspace) page. Surely the GSA and the White House know what's appropriate for government use..."

Re:Facebook

[kenj0418]

It's all on THOMAS - eventually.

However, it is not on THOMAS a minimum of 5 days before any non-emergency bill is passed. There is also no ability to comment on THOMAS (that's not the point of THOMAS).

Don't get me wrong -- I think THOMAS is great, it just doesn't do what Obama's promise said:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/234/allow-five-days-of-public-comment-before-signing-b/

[President Obama] will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.

Is it possible to have enemys on facebook?

[alta]

Just like /. I want to make obama my enemy. Mod him troll/off topic/flamebait.

Guess I should prep myself for the poor mods ;) I think my excellent karma can take it though

Re:Is it possible to have enemys on facebook?

[kimvette]

You know, I am SO sick of Obama kissing everyone's ass and working hard to be popular rather than fixing problems. You might say he's fixing the economy, but he's repeating mistakes which resulted in the great depression so many decades ago. How is racking up $11 TRILLION in debt in 100 days going to help the economy in the long terms? The banks which were the cause of the credit crunch are in need of MORE money and have blown the money they were given on toys and bonuses rather than making credit available, and the bills were written such that they do not have to be held accountable for how the money is spent. Insurance companies were given hundreds of billions TWICE and are in need of more money again. How does this help increase the manufacturing base? How do these bailouts help to increase the actual creation of wealth? The truth is it's going to result in massive tax increases which will go toward paying many times the original outlay for decades to come - it is unlikely the national debt will ever be repaid.

Obama work on fixing the problem: part of the solution includes import tariffs, and the other component is tax cuts across the board and less government spending - especially spending on pork.

Re:Is it possible to have enemys on facebook?

[eln]

Just like /. I want to make obama my enemy. Mod him troll/off topic/flamebait.

Guess I should prep myself for the poor mods ;) I think my excellent karma can take it though

There are easier ways to get yourself put on an FBI watch list. Why not try the tried and true method of sending him a death threat through the mail? You'll be on his enemies list in no time flat.

Re:Is it possible to have enemys on facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess I should prep myself for the poor mods ;) I think my excellent karma can take it though

Around here, just saying that pretty much guarantees you will be modded up to +5.

Re:Is it possible to have enemys on facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess I should prep myself for the poor mods ;)

Looks like you're at "5, Interesting" to me. If someone had made the exact same post with "Bush" instead of "Obama" they would have been modded down to -1, Troll. Good old slashdot echo chamber. :)

Re:Is it possible to have enemys on facebook?

[bdenton42]

How is racking up $11 TRILLION in debt in 100 days going to help the economy in the long terms?

Obama has contributed $500 billion to the national debt so far. The total national debt stands at $11.2 trillion, of which Bush II contributed nearly half (45%).

But if Obama continues spending at the current pace he could pass Bush II around the end of his third year.

Re:Is it possible to have enemys on facebook?

[vertinox]

You know, I am SO sick of Obama kissing everyone's ass and working hard to be popular rather than fixing problems. You might say he's fixing the economy, but he's repeating mistakes which resulted in the great depression so many decades ago. How is racking up $11 TRILLION in debt in 100 days going to help the economy in the long terms?

I think the problem is that everyone fails to understand what it means to live in a fiat economy rather than a commodity based on.

First of all I can't believe you are saying he is repeating the mistakes that resulted in the great depression. That was caused by Hoover raising taxes and the Federal Reserve letting the banks fail that resulted in a deflationary implosion of the economy. (

So far Obama has neither raised taxes nor has the Fed let any banks fail.

Secondly, the key benefit (and possibly the main detractor) of a fiat economy is that it is faith based that debts will be settled and contracts upheld. This faith means that the economy works as long as everyone believes it will work.

People that still come into work and still work and still spend means that the economy will still grow. People who don't spend and hoard money cause deflation which means less economic activity which results in economic shrinkage and that doesn't work well in a population that grows.

I mean it works well for a nation like Japan where the population is shrinking, but if new jobs are not created for an ever growing population then it causes problems.

A fiat economy resolves the problem of an economy that is limited by an arbitrary commodity and moves it towards one that resolves on good faith credit and that the rest of society and the market will move towards a unified goal of increased economic activity.

On the downside when society does feel that this faith is shaken (ie contracts are broken and debts are defaulted) the nasty side of the fiat comes into play. So in order to recover the economy, faith must be restored or else it will fail even moreso.

Keep in mind most of the debts and wealth lost during the great depression and today was almost entirely theoretical and only numbers on a piece of paper. I don't think its easy to get people to understand this (i mean the average joe will never teach himself how to earn money on the stock market) but since we aren't going to peg the dollar on gold or oil (I mean we can't without collapsing the economy and no bank on the federal reserve would go with this and I doubt you can get a majority of congress to go along with you so its not going to be our alternative) we simply have to deal with what comes with it.

As long as inflation is kept up with economic growth then the system works as long as people keep faith in it because in all reality we do have a surplus of food and energy which keeps everyone alive and happy for the most part (mostly).

Re:Is it possible to have enemys on facebook?

[ravenshrike]

Only if you're stupid enough to believe his projections. Not to mention that on the level the .gov plays at, cash accounting debt is almost utterly meaningless. Accrual accounting is all that's important, and the spending outlays Obama's attempting to ram through will make the current SocSec/MediCare outlays(Which rack up to somewhere between 70-90 trillion dollars) look like fucking chump change.

"White House 2.0?"

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

We're just over 100 days in, people. How about "White House 2.0 RC1?" I don't think we're ready to go gold just yet.

Re:"White House 2.0?"

[Selfbain]

RC1 was Hillary Clinton but there was some negative feedback from users during testing.

breaking news:

[larry bagina]

9:33 AM: gotta drop the kids off at the pool
9:53 AM: shit, no tp

Hopefully....

[WindBourne]

that does not mean that Obama or anybody with a secured systems (such as the football carrier) is hooking to these.

Re:Hopefully....

[StreetStealth]

Only in Hollywood.

I don't think the Commander in Chief or anyone in his cabinet will touch these once over the next four years.

This is almost certainly handled by the Office of the White House Press Secretary, and I would imagine there are several staffers who will do the actual writing before passing it by the Secretary himself for approval.

The Press Secretary is probably the only cabinet member who will even have this on his mind.

Re:Hopefully....

[auric_dude]

I think he will soon be able to use his hardened 8830 http://www.billingworld.com/articles/regulatory/obama-close-to-getting-blackberry-back.html to address the leaders and peoples of the World when ever the urge takes him.

I've been watching this for a while

[mc1138]

The Obama administration is just leveraging all the tools they have available. More people can be reached via the web than anywhere else. I guess the only reason this is really news is that its an outbreak of common sense for a government agency to use these tools. I'm hoping it will allow for more transparency, but then again its just as easy to lie and fudge numbers online as it is through traditional media outlets.

Re:I've been watching this for a while

[eln]

It may be partially about transparency in government, but it's much more about the perpetual campaign season. These days, politicians are always campaigning. The new mantra is it's never too early to start campaigning for the next race.

The Obama administration will use these tools to release a constant stream of positive spin. In the old days, Presidents had to rely on weekly radio addresses that no one listened to, daily press briefings that no one listened to, and press conferences that either happened too infrequently to sustain a message or so frequently that people got sick of them.

Now, with these services, the administration has the opportunity to campaign continuously in a low-key and less intrusive way that will, they hope, be more effective. Time will tell how well it works.

Re:I've been watching this for a while

[emocomputerjock]

I agree in principle, but the fact of the matter is that the sites they're choosing to use to spread that information have some of the most godawful security records. If we're relying on Obama's tweets for information, it's going to suck when some staffer gets hit with a worm while checking out some hot chick's profile and the next thing the rest of the world sees is something akin to Russia being outlawed.

Re:I've been watching this for a while

[drinkypoo]

It may be partially about transparency in government, but it's much more about the perpetual campaign season. These days, politicians are always campaigning. The new mantra is it's never too early to start campaigning for the next race.

Are you new? The first job of every elected politician has always been reelection.

Re:I've been watching this for a while

[eln]

Sure, but the active campaigning was usually reserved for the campaign season, meaning the several months before an election. The rest of the time was spent governing, albeit doing so in a way that would play well with the electorate come campaign time.

Now, it's all about "managing the message" and staying in campaign mode all the time. It's not about doing things that will "play well in Peoria", it's about constantly reinforcing the message that whatever it is you're doing is good for the people. It's the difference between doing the people's work and making sure the people think whatever it is you're doing is the people's work.

Everyone is doing it....or else?

[Bob_Who]

I understand that these three social networking applications are popular, but I am already burning out on this trend. I was an early adopter but find myself just wanting to take a step back from the herding masses and regroup. I wonder if these proprietary web applications are really worthy of such Presidential endorsement. Perhaps we're just piling on the craze with Ellen, Ashton, and Oprah, as well as every texting teen and their friends with benefits. Its a good thing to see alternatives to newspaper start taking a hold, but I can't help but feel a little bit as though "we the sheeple" are being herded into this arrangement. Like cellular, its promise comes at a price, and with a commitment to corporate media monoliths. And I just hate feeding corporations in order to participate in the public community. I'll be interested to see how the White House copes with this bold dive into the national social networking media blast.

In related news...

[InsertWittyNameHere]

In keeping with the Obama administration's open adoption of modern American Pop Culture. The Whitehouse announced today of plans to start filming a new reality show called "Obama's BFF." The show will closely follow Obama in his search for a friendship with a world leader, akin to the Bush-Blair relationship. 16 world leaders will live in the Whitehouse for 8 weeks as they compete for Obama's friendship.

Who will be America's next ally? Find out this summer, only on Fox.

Re:In related news...

[Xiozhiq]

Barack of Love: President Obama tours the world in Air Force One with the other leaders present at the G-20 summit. They face off in a series of challenges designed to test their mettle, in a style reminiscent of American Gladiator meets Real World meets Bromance, to see who is worthy of becoming Obama's best friend and top advisor. 19 enter, one will remain... 8PM / 7 Central, only on Fox.

In all seriousness though, I'm intrigued by the Twitter feed. Not so much the Facebook / MySpace thing.

Re:In related news...

[Andy_w715]

at the end of each episode PresBo will hand out stimulus money "Will you accept this gift from the taxpayers of the US?"

Re:In related news...

[geobeck]

Who will be America's next ally? Find out this summer, only on Fox.

If it's on Fox, they'll rig it so his BFF is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Hilarity will ensue when Barak loses his half of their BFF bracelet and Mahmoud introduces Barak to his 'civilian nuclear program'.

Ah

[fulldecent]

How interesting. All these sites, unlike slashdot, allow you to state your friends; not foes.

Friending is one thing, but...

[StreetStealth]

If I de-friend the White House on Facebook, will I get put on a watch list?

Will this be like his linkedin account?

[djh101010]

He joined linkedin.com during the election, too, and made a forum post about "How can I help you (to help me get elected" or whatever. Bunch of responses from people, no ack from him that I ever saw.

I responded to his forum post to ask if he was really there to participate and have any kind of dialog, or if he was just there to make it look like he was tech-savvy and connected, and all I got back was an invitation to connect.

Stupid waste of taxes

[diegocgteleline.es]

I think it is a waste of taxes to have people writting post in twitter. Seriously. I'm not american so they're not my taxes, but still looks stupid.

Re:Stupid waste of taxes

[hansamurai]

Law makers should be required to write laws on Twitter! 140 characters should be enough for any law!

Re:Stupid waste of taxes

[geobeck]

I think it is a waste of taxes to have people writting post in twitter.

Considering the cost of having a couple of interns posting social updates when they're not getting coffee for Michelle and helping Joe match his socks, this is probably one of the less worrisome taxpayer burdens in recent memory.

Re:Stupid waste of taxes

[T Murphy]

Bob: But..but officer, what did I do wrong? What law did I break? Cop: "While in the United States of America, it is unlawful to be in possession of any items capable of the mass production and / or spread of fir" Bob: What? I think that should mean "fire". Cop: Well, they ran out of characters and it says fir, so that pinecone in your hand there is an illegal item. I will need to take that as evidence.

More communication = more accountability?

[ODiV]

If the Whitehouse is putting more down in writing, on the Internet where it can easily be archived and searched through, will this lead to greater scrutiny from the public? Will they be more likely to be called on their backtracking?

Or, more likely, will they just make sure to never say anything of substance?

The obvious next step

[dilvish_the_damned]

Towards the end of his tenure he will end up on FML.

Re:More communication != more accountability.

[dyingtolive]

If the Whitehouse is putting more down in writing, on the Internet where it can easily be archived and searched through, will this lead to greater scrutiny from the public? Will they be more likely to be called on their backtracking?

Or, more likely, will they just make sure to never say anything of substance?

It doesn't really matter if they're scrutinized or called on for their backtracking. There are entire TV shows (Daily Show) dedicated to pointing stuff like that out. I remember watching an episode where they were talking about the bailouts and showing footage of congressmen talking about how good the bailouts were going to be and then cutting to another clip of the same person talking about how much they were against the bailouts and never supported them to begin with. People chuckle about it, but no one really cares. Its sad that it turned out like that, but short of forcing open revolt and exile, I don't know what can be done. Chances are the next bunch would be just as bad as the current, if not worse.

Re:oh

[pwfffff]

Yeah, keep replying to yourself. It's helping.

Sick and tired of conservatives rewriting history

[spun]

By repeating the mistakes, do you mean 'doing nothing and letting the free market sort it out,' which is what Hoover did? Or do you mean, 'Enacting mildly socialist, temporary policies that begin to fix things immediately,' like FDR did?

FDR fixed the Great Depression with socialism, much as conservatives hate to admit it and try to rewrite history, the facts speak for themselves. Just look at economic data from the time. When Hoover did nothing, things got worse. When FDR started enacting his policies, things started to get better. When the Republicans made him scale back his policies, things got worse until he started them back up again.

Re:oh

[FireFlie]

Mod parent up, for replying to an asshat who replies to his replies of his posts.

FDR's socialist policies fixed the depression

[spun]

Modding me down won't change the facts. Look at the economic data from the time. This is why everyone loved FDR. This is why he was elected for FOUR TERMS. He fixed things with socialism, where Hoover had left things up to the free market and made them worse.

You may hate the truth, but the truth doesn't care.