…realise that social networking sites are for kids?

So bad week for labour this time with mountains being made out of the Abbot and now Milliband twitter errors. But really, they should all grow up and stop:

Pretending they are young and hip
Behaving like the school master who tries to be your friend
The mum who still tries to wear herdaughters clothes
The drunk uncle at the wedding

Twitter especially is a poor risk/return forum for an MP. Unlikely to gain respect for posting drivel but sure to get contempt. Frankly Ed ( or his press sec’s attempt) to look cool by mourning Blackbuster (sic) Bob was the sillier of the two as that really was just trying to look in touch. Rather sad really.

Ok it worked for Obahma ( for a while) but with his Emperor’s new clothes clear for all to see, that makes him look even more exposed now that he is struggling to deliver.

Will it be the Tories who fall into the trap next week?

A bit like my 48 y/o ex-BIL complaining (and not in a joking fashion) of how my middle son (who has stayed with them a couple of days) eats too much, on Faceache…

Grow-up w***er.

I think the desparate need to both look at the cutting edge of tech and to have friends / be of interest / have their egos stroked will mean they will just continue to make idiots of themselves on twitter – a format that is just spot on for looking like a fool

“the desire to be a politician should be enough to ban you for life from ever being one” Billy Connolly

I think the Big Yin is spot on with this

Sadly your are probably right TJ but nice to be in agreement for a change 😉 Is it our age do you think?

Nothing wrong with them using twitter. In fact I thoroughly applaud them for being so “in touch” with the mechanisms the electorate use to communicate.

If you think its just used by kids you’ve probably never logged on – most organisations now use it for “micro press releases” (or links to their main releases).

The difficulty with politicians is once they use it to share matters of opinion rather than fact – I expect my politicians to have opinions; it can be difficult to ensure that opinions are not misconstrued in just 140 characters – but before twitter journos used to listen to (and quote) the words coming out of their mouths rather than their keyboards which were just as likely to result in “gaffs”.

I think the truly funny thing is that its come out that Red Ed doesn’t tweet himself, but that there’s a press officer in charge of his twitter feed 🙄

At least Diane said what she thought, rather than having to employ someone to come up with opinions for her…

I haven’t seen your story of your racism hell yet Zulu…are you going to tweet it for us?

I haven’t seen your story of your racism hell yet Zulu…are you going to tweet it for us?

Wosdatden?…Hell? Really….is he ginger…..

Zulu-Eleven – Member
I think the truly funny thing is that its come out that Red Ed doesn’t tweet himself, but that there’s a press officer in charge of his twitter feed

I should hope so too. He’s leader of the opposition ffs, he shouldn’t be spending time on twitter – do you expect him to write all his press releases, speeches, newspaper articles too? It is naive to assume any professional twitter account is managed by a single person.

The whole blowing a spelling mistake into a news story is an indictment of the standard of journalism at some papers, and the level of political debate in this country.

People need to stop wanting politicians be perfect and articulate everything without mistake – you get bland discussion and sound bites (see all career politicians, especially party leaders), politicians avoiding interviews (Osborne), and avoiding positions they really believe in, or spouting lines they don’t really understand but were given to them by the press officer.

Has nobody watched the thick of it?!

Capt true to an extent but herein lies the danger of Twitter etc. it is fine for banter etc but even though poly argues that it is widely used it is still a dangerous tool. It lends itself to meaningless soundbites and as we all know it is easy to mistype and if DA is to be believed to be misinterpreted.

Obvious conclusion therefore is grow up, recognise Twitter for what it is, communicate using appropriate fora and stop trying to be hip. It’s like baseball caps!! Prone to misfiring!!

I tweet my mp quite a bit. She nearly always responds.

On the other hand we could say, recognise twitter and other social networks for what they are. A useful method of communicating with people in the technological age.

Or, thm and TeeJ, get with it granddaddies. 🙂

DD I am not that old, he says writing from his iPad! Just think that serious discussions require more than 140 ch soundbites. I worked for man years in an industry that liked to reduce serious research not 1min soundbites and am well aware of the consequences.

Agree that this week mountains were made of molehills albeit with hints of hypocrisy thrown in. But that’s what you will get from Twitter. By all means use it for contacting an mp but stop trying to be hip for the sake of it – dear Ed!!!!

Twitter is just another example that shows that the human race has been able to develop technology that is far in advance of humanities own development.

MPs will never give up on Twitter cos some spin doctor advisor will tell them they really need it and that “you” are much too clever to get caught out by Twitting something ridiculous.

I tweet my mp quite a bit. She nearly always responds.

Is that a euphamism?

Like it or not, you can’t ignore Twitter and it’s certainly not just for kids. Whether it’s just for shirkers and egomaniacs (like STW) is another matter though.

And read your own posts back for mistakes before you take the piss out of Ed Milliband’s typos!

😉

PS. Twitter is brilliant from a journalist’s perspective though. Celebs and public figures love it because it lets them bypass the media and the press office and communicate directly with the masses.

Which is exactly why journalists love it too, because they end up going off message or getting into slagging matches and creating more column inches anyway.

And considering how much people moaned about PR during Blair’s premiership, you’d think they’d be glad that politicians have a new method of direct communication with the public, eh?

DD I am not that old

Well stop sounding so old then. 🙂 I’m afraid it’s here to stay. Politicians are going to use it. The two incidents this week were blown out of all proportion by the PC-gone-mad Brigade (who really do exist). Occasionally they’ll come out with a bit of a gaffe but life will go on and we’ll all get on with ours too. I disagree that MPs are trying to be hip for the sake of it.

Is that a euphamism?

Hint: “e”. Otherwise, poor effort I’m afraid. 😐

Otherwise, what chakaping says more or less sums it up.

Chapaking – that my point, I make typos all the time. Ed’s error (or his minders error) was just such an example and proves my point. I am not taking the piss merely highlighting the dangers he exposes himself to by using Twitter.

DD being “older” brings the benefits of experience and the ability to see when pandering to fashion without understanding the consequences can cause problems.

Journo’s love it of course because the chance of banana skins increases. Mentally challenged celebs realise that they can communicate without the need to use the more traditional forms of language – spelling and grammar. So perfect for them and youffs.

Sorry but I do think they are trying to appear hip and in-touch. That is the main reason not that they have found a superior means of communicating important messages. Should spurn a new breed of Twitter consultants.. Something for unemployed grads perhaps? 😉
But MPs should have learned by now. But If they don’t then they can’t complain when it comes back to bite them on the bum!

…realise that social networking sites are for kids?

i think the best way to prove your theory is for a bunch of middle aged men to discuss it on a social networking site like this.

who are the bigger idiots? the press? or the public?
what I struggle with is this:
1 – the press tell you what you should care about
2 – then they tell you that the public care about it
do the public actually care about it?
or do the care about it because they:
1 – are told they should care about it?
2 – are told that they do care about it?
3 – they are idiots?
.

Brakes. Good questions. First is easy, the press aren’t idiots despite the outward impressions as they are the ones who make the money from all of this. The others less so……!!

Trailmonkey – touché !! My excuse is that I am bored supervising kid’s revision. So sites are perfect to kill time by talking about stuff that really doesn’t matter before getting back to giffen goods and indifference curves. So for that they are perfect! Run in 15 mins.

i think the best way to prove your theory is for a bunch of middle aged men to discuss it on a social networking site like this.

#lolz

DD being “older” brings the benefits of experience and the ability to see when pandering to fashion without understanding the consequences can cause problems.

Wa-evski gramps. 😉

(tag not mine btw)

Hint: “e”. Otherwise, poor effort I’m afraid.

LOL on a thread where typo’s are seen as important

Will MPs now grow up…

Have you seen them in the houses of parliment? Jeering and booing like pre-adolescent chimps.

DD don’t worry the tags are a giggle and merely prove a point about suitable ages for fora. The whole thread was tongue in cheek anyway!!

Not too old for hard 1 hr XC run. Down 6lbs so far this year! Only as old as you feel or is it the woman you feel. Damn posted a sexist comment…… 😉

Like it or not, you can’t ignore Twitter

never logged on , never launched it and never used it….What else would you like me to do?

I mean FFS wasting your time on the internet chatting with strangers how sad is that ?

.

never logged on , never launched it and never used it….What else would you like me to do?

@deadlydarcy JY 😀

I iz waitinz on ur tweetz.

JY, the first time that you, TJ and I have found common ground. So maybe there is some good in Twitter 😉

Actually my kids think its for saddo’s. Kids prefer FB and Blackberry IM. Twitter is for folk pretending to be young and hip!!

Yeah, I was going to say that earlier. I don’t think kidz use twitter much do they?

#grumpyoldbastards

ace we are old an out of touch see you on grumpy old men 😉
Runs of to tweet DD nope it wants me to register just to read you but you made me look but I have still not read tweet

I love twitter…..I’ve hardly ever posted anything on it but is great for keeping up with things you are interested in. Follow sport? Just hook up to all the Fleet St sports journalists and go from there. Me I’m a bit of a politics junky so follow all the ConHome, Guido, LabourList and all the hacks…..its really very good, they all tweet their own blogposts and articles so you link straight to them in real time.

Forget all that stuff about celebrities tweeting what they had for breakfast, thats not what it is about at all. Make sure you follow @Humblebrag for idiotic celeb boasting, is hilarious.

@Humblebrag for idiotic celeb boasting, is hilarious.

😆

Indeed, some excellent stuff isn’t there? The only thing is that it’s mostly Merkin slebs I know nothing about. As soon as you get the concept of what a “Humble Brag” is, it’s fantastic. Definitely a +1 from me for that.

My city council also takes tweets of fly-tipping and crap tagging to alert the clean up teams which seems a useful idea to me.

It seems even in traditional interviews MPs can’t help themselves:

Cameron’s Tourettes gaff

My MP using Twitter. In fact, she even came along and had a drink with a bunch of local Twitter users. I think it’s brilliant; keeps her in touch with local issues; though she’s that rare thing: an MP who was brought up and lived in the town before she became it’s MP so she knows a lot of the issues anyway.

miketually, it’s fair to say you use it a lot. Do you get any issues with students, parents, head teachers etc? (I assume you’re a teacher).

miketually, it’s fair to say you use it a lot. Do you get any issues with students, parents, head teachers etc? (I assume you’re a teacher).

Some students have found me and follow me, but I don’t follow back. I never post anything that I’d not say to a colleague while there were students around, so I’ve never had an issue.

I can’t go anywhere without running into a student or a parent or an ex-student, so it’s fairly normal for my personal and work lives to overlap. At least one poster here used to have their child at our place; last year I taught my neighbour’s grandson; I used to teach my brother and sister; students work in almost every restaurant and pub locally; two former students now work in my bank; etc.

I don’t see it as any different to posting here, which I’ve been doing for more than a decade without any issues. It might be different if I taught pre-16 though; I work in a 6th form college, so we’re pretty laid back.

A whole thread on irrelevant shit like this, and nothing about Goldman Sachs.

We deserve our fate. Or you do. Or your children.

Twitter is for twits.