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If you think I don’t post to this blog often enough, consider reading my other, work-related blog, where I post more often.
What I'm Reading
- Apple to Unveil its Next Move in Music?CBS News | Aug 30, 2010Apple has scheduled a big event for Wednesday. CBS News speculates on the company's coming announcements.
- Can Preschoolers Be Depressed?New York Times | Aug 25, 2010Some psychologists believe preschoolers can experience bouts of depression, this New York Times report says.
- Electronic Arts stands by Medal of Honor Taliban featureCNET | Aug 25, 2010EA defends the ability to play as Taliban soldiers in the upcoming "Medal of Honor" game.
- Twitter’s not stupid – you just have boring friendswww.andrewdubber.com | Aug 16, 2010A nice look at how to get the most out of Twitter and refutation of some common Twitter complaints.
- Is 3-D dead in the water? A box-office analysisSlate | Aug 24, 2010Slate magazine looks at whether people are happy with just two dimensions in their movies, thank you very much.
- Apple to Unveil its Next Move in Music?
Recent Comments
My Clips- Cause of plane crash west of Bozeman under investigation, pilot pronounced dead at scene August 31, 2010
- The man who wanted train horns August 16, 2010
- Money well spent? August 15, 2010
- Local telecom company gets $64 million to bring high-speed Internet to rural Gallatin County August 5, 2010
- Montana Opticom receives $64 million in stimulus money for rural broadband August 4, 2010
- AT&T to replace Alltel in Montana within a year June 25, 2010
- Bozeman twin looks to scale namesake peak: K2 June 21, 2010
- High water claims Amsterdam Road bridge June 12, 2010
- Trio of veteran Belgrade teachers retiring June 7, 2010
- MSU robot digger wins NASA competition May 29, 2010
Michael Becker has been blogging about academia, digital culture and journalism since 2005. He is the Web editor of the
Late afternoon Bozeman fiasco update
As I've already written today, the City of Bozeman, Montana, has been doing some questionable stuff when it comes to background checks on job applicants. The city has asked applicants for the usernames and passwords to their social media accounts for "three or four years," the city attorney told KBZK news on Wednesday.
The news spread from KBZK to Boing Boing and then to other news sites and blogs. And of course thousands of people fanned the fire on Twitter. (I was among them.) Now, KBZK is reporting that the city's receiving an "e-mail a minute" about the matter, including my own. I was even interviewed by the television station for the follow-up story they're working on, and I understand that the newspaper will have a full story tomorrow.
I won't get into the issues in-depth; I'll save that for a post later tonight. I do want to point to that e-mail-a-minute figure as an example of what can happen when social media kicks into high gear. I started posting about this fiasco at about 10:30 last night, and many, many people joined in -- more people from more places around the country than I honestly thought would join in.
As a result, the city is "looking" at their policy, which I think means that we'll see some changes soon, at least some heavy explanation and maybe even some backpedaling. Whatever the outcome, I think we can say that social networks and their users had an effect on the real world today, an effect I hope makes Bozeman a better place to work.
More to come.
Bozeman Privacy Fiasco
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