I wish I could say that Twitter is providing useful, on-the-ground, independent reports of the Israeli military action in Gaza and the Hamas bombing of southern Israel. But all I have found there so far–in English, from individual tweeters–is heated rhetoric from non-Gazans and international observers.
This morning when I checked the news about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, I saw many people on Twitter reporting that the Indian police or government had asked Twitter users to please stop reporting on police and military operations related to the attacks.
This week I’ve been covering what appears to be an assault by the Associated Press on the principle of fair use. While this particular flap (which involves posts to a community site called the Drudge Retort) concerns bloggers and site users, many say it could end up having a chilling effect on journalism and free speech.
This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes "from other Web sites."
We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to "scrape" original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.
The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.
That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don't expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.
So here is exactly what we do: Read more »
Because the site is wholly owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we aim to adhere to the journalistic standards of the best of the mainstream media. But, because it is run autonomously as a small online startup, we aim to exhibit the fresh thinking and nimbleness of the best of the new media. We want to be first, and sassy, but also well sourced and accurate. We will offer lots of opinion and analysis, but plenty of fact as well.
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