Slashdot Mirror
2 New Social Networks With Very Different Political Twists
judgecorp writes "Frustrated at the off-topic chatter on Twitter, British MP Louise Mensch has launched a supposedly rival service. Despite the name, Menshn, this is apparently not a hoax, but a site aimed at 'on-topic' conversation, initially around the U.S. election. Mensch is a former 'chick lit' author, and a Member of Parliament since 2010. She has taken part in questioning of Rupert and James Murdoch, and urged control of social media." If "control of social media" urged by sitting politicians strikes you as undesirable, or the hyper-focused content seems constraining, take heart: an anonymous reader points out an online community of a different stripe — a social network launched by Wikileaks, intended to be "a secure, surveillance-resistant social network purpose-built for Friends of WikiLeaks." Whether or not your politics line up with those of most Wikileaks supporters, you might wish for some of the features FoWL is designed to provide: "By design your details are encrypted, and hidden from everyone except your immediate contacts. Even we can't access them. Connected by FoWL, friends of WikiLeaks will communicate however they like, including using secure person-to-person methods. As the network grows away from the site infrastructure, it becomes autonomous and decentralized, opaque to observers and impossible to compromise."
Will Ecuador accept Julian Assange's friend request?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Is it that hard to distinguish between individual privacy and abusive and/or illegal secrecy in government?
"...impossible to compromise."
Sounds like a challenge for NSA!
a site aimed at 'on-topic' conversation
We already have this, its called the comments section of our local dying newspaper. I would assume your local newspaper, if any, is similar. The comments on articles are exclusively filled with sloganeering by "both" sides written by paid political hacks. The problem with the business model is its already dying, because on a percentage basis, roughly no one wants to read idiotic "divide and conqueror" sloganeering. Why sling meaningless slogans on a new site, if you're already slinging them on the old site?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
When she was elected, I thought Louise Mensch might actually be some use in Parliament. Certainly a lot of the attacks on her have been (a) unmerited and (b) seem to come from people who are not quite right in the head. But Arianna Huffington she is not. And it is pretty clear that, no matter how MPs of all parties may complain about News International and its proprietor, David Cameron is determined that no harm shall come to Murdoch, his cashflow, or (given the retention of Hunt) Murdoch's moles. Rather than waste time on a website doomed to oblivion, shouldn't she be trying to get her own party on board the prevention of foreign media interference in the UK Government?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
For an example of her (lack of) grasp of politics, or indeed common sense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WvAkhW-XNI
Given that she has chosen not to work full time as an MP any more while she goes off to start another "lifestyle company", I assume she doesn't need to earn £66k of tax payers' money, let alone all the expenses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal) every year as a result.
So.. where is the resignation letter, Louise?
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
It went away.
She wasn't involved with the coding, and she's not (that) young, either, but she is a refreshingly different face from the political old guard.
[FUCK BETA]
Who in their right mind would give private information to an organization that has made it's reputation on exposing private information to the public. Seems like a no brainer to avoid that site if you ask me.
You'll probably have to wait until men can gestate, give birth to, and then nurse a baby.
Until then, sex will matter.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It's fine: http://diasporaproject.org/
There's also Friendica, which is cross-network (you can even add diaspora users to it) and contrary to diaspora will run on quite a few shared hosts: http://friendica.com/ Though public pods aren't easy to come by... care to run one? :D It may not be the fastest or the prettiest, but that's why I post the link on slashdot, and not on grandma's wall ^^ I also LOVE the tagline. "The internet is our social network." That's the spirit, and something to build on.
Also, this is a few days old and nothing is on it yet, but I'll certainly watch it: http://socialswarm.net/ We don't need more networks, we need protocols and microformats! Most of this stuff goes completely over my head, but I hope in a few years there will be tutorials for noobs, so that even I can make my own CMS interact with social networks... IMHO, apathy and resignation just isn't on. We all have text editors, so there are no excuses. Run a little node, federate some love, get down tonight.