Kadhafi and the USA use Facebook to spread propaganda

Currently, Facebook is used especially in the Middle East by youth to call for protests. However, also governments of several countries seem to see Facebook as a useful tool. For example, in Libya young people are trained to disseminate information on the network in favour of Kadhafi and the American military also makes good use of Facebook.

A Serbian Facebook page in support of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has gathered many page views. More than 46.000 people have so far liked the group “Support for Muammar al Gaddafi from the people of Serbia” at the Facebook social network, posting messages in favour of Kadhafi and against Western powers and coalition strikes.

There are ways for soldiers from the USA to maintain many different identities online. The Facebook profiles are created under false names in order to influence online discussions and to spread propaganda in especially the Middle East. According to David Petraeus, an American general, these online operations are focused on countering extremism and hostile propaganda outside the USA.

Arnold Lubrun, manager of Facebook Benelux, said that Facebook is available for everyone but if something does not comply with the laws, action will certainly be undertaken. The vice-president of Facebook International says that there are active teams who constantly check Facebook for disorders. If they find out that a certain profile is fake, it will be removed immediately. 

Below you can watch a short video (mostly spoken in Dutch) about the opinion of Facebook itself regarding this issue: 

What do you think? Should anyone be able to say anything they want on the Internet or should freedom of expression be limited online?

Social Media, the solution for every company

Nowadays, more and more companies are using social media, for example in promoting their products. However, the prime communication tool among companies, both with customers and among employees, remains the email. Manager of large companies receive 200 mails per day, of which 18% consists of spam. Therefore, managers spend between five and twenty hours a week reading and writing emails.

Atos Origin, an international IT services company, wants to change this current business situation. According to Thierry Breton, CEO and chairman of Atos Origin, the volume of emails that have been sent and received is unsustainable for business while online social networking is now more popular than email and search. Atos Origin sets out its ambition to be a zero email company within three years. Email is replaced by new forms of communication and cooperation such as social media. William Rice, developer and consultant at Atos Origin social business solutions, says that messaging via LinkedIn and information sharing through platforms such as Microsoft Sharepoint are alternatives for collaboration without the use of email. According to Rice, personalized portals will be arise in future where people can label, tag, link, archive and share their own information. An example is OpenID. This is a central platform where various online services such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can be linked.

William Rice: “The biggest barrier in the transition to a free email environment is the culture change. It is just a matter of getting used to it.”

Get socialized with social media!

Online communication through for example the popular networking site Facebook is a fun way of passing time. However, besides the fact that it is seen as an entertainment tool, online communication offers a range of possibilities for meeting new friends. Each type of person such as a fat housewife, a deaf boy, a shy teenage girl and a busy businessman has a chance to be appreciated and to form close friendships, through the increasing possibilities of online communication. The reduced number of visible cues in online communication provides benefits because people have the ability to present itself in an optimal way. Nobody inserts a profile picture where he or she just got out of bed or looked extremely drunk, right? Everyone wants to present his or her ideal self on social networking sites. The withholding of (negative) information creates a faster sense of similarity. In this situation, the first impression is often positive, resulting in the fact that people like each other faster. Furthermore, people ask more questions online and they reveal more personal information in comparison with communication face-to-face. These interactive strategies, which are often used in online communication, ensure that more and more information is gathered from a certainperson that has been met online. Obtaining this information leads to reduced uncertainty about the specific person. The less uncertainty there is about a specific person, the more people like this person. It can be concluded that online communication especially for the less extroverted person may offer a solution to friendship formation. By the increasing opportunities offered by the Internet, nobody has to be lonely anymore!

Why do you think online dating sites are so successful?!

How children can be encouraged to eat fruit as a snack instead of candy

“Daddy, I want these cookies of Dora”, says his daughter of almost four years old. “Well okay”, dad says. “Just put it in the chart please”. Once they got home, it seems that the child does not like the cookies at all. She takes a small bite and with a dirty face she puts the box away. Obviously, she didn’t like the cookies at all and never ate them. Nevertheless, more than two weeks later, dad went with his daughter to the supermarket again. Incomprehensibly but true, the child asked again for exactly the same cookies.

This sounds maybe a bit strange but this is a true story. While the child knows perfectly well she does not like the cookies, she decides that she wants them again. Why does this child make such a strange decision?

This particular situation is related to children’s consumer behavior.  During the course “Design of Business Communication” I was mainly interested in this specific behavior among very young children. For this course I have written a paper in which I investigated how to gain and maintain the attention of children through communication, encouraging them to choose fruit as a snack instead of candy.

Children are very sensitive for certain stimuli which will attract their attention. A couple of such stimuli are bright colors, unusual shapes, bold characters and unusual surroundings. In addition to these stimuli, children attach great importance to familiarity which means that a famous cartoon character gains much attention of children. Therefore, I gave the advice to design a commercial which meets those requirements. When the commercial includes interactivity, the young viewers get the impression to be part of the story which creates involvement. During this commercial children will be brought into contact with fruit. The commercial has an open end and has its follow up in a supermarket chain where children will be confronted with fruit again in a creative and fun way. To bring children into contact with fruit in a fun way and to make use of famous cartoon characters in the same context, this information will impact the children which results in the storage of this information in their memories. During the follow up in the supermarket, children are able to collect gadgets concerning fruit. At this stadium, the information will be retrieved from their memories again. In this way, fruit will be recognition for children and will be associated with fun which will make them choose fruit faster.

Do you want more information on this topic?

Here you can find an article that has been written by Simone de Droog, Ph. D. candidate at the University of Amsterdam, and colleagues: http://www.ccam-ascor.nl

Would you like to know more about the specific design which has been advised or do you want to give your comment? Just post a message on this page or contact me.