RSS FeedSocial Media in Canadian Politics, and Defamation and Copyright (Episode 19)
Omar Ha-Redeye gave a talk on the use of social media in politics, focusing on the Canadian scene, at the Miles S. Nadal Management Centre in the Ernst & Young Tower of the Toronto Dominion Centre.
Issues of copyright, including the use of YouTube, are discussed, as well as social media alternatives to defamation actions.
Conservative Bloggers Launch Campaign to Waste Energy
On Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 8:30 PM, people, businesses, and governments will switch off their lights to save energy for one hour. The campaign, called Earth Hour, is aimed at promoting action to address climate change. According to the campaign website:
Earth Hour is a global WWF climate change initiative. The campaign invites individuals, businesses, governments and communities to turn out their lights for one hour on one day of the year to show their support for action on climate change. The event began in Sydney in 2007, when 2 million people switched off their lights. In 2008, more than 50 million people around the globe participated. In 2009, Earth Hour aims to reach out to 1 billion people in 1,000 cities.
The initiative enjoys widespread support, even from conservatives. Earlier today, Christian Paradis, Minister of Public Works and Government Services, and Jim Prentice, Minister of the Environment announced that the Government of Canada will participate in Earth Hour by reducing lighting in all federally owned buildings.
Unfortunately, a handful of conservative bloggers didn’t get the memo. Several member blogs of the Blogging Tories are calling for a counter-campaign to waste energy in order to offset the energy reductions of those participating in Earth Hour. One of the bloggers calling for a waste energy campaign is Kate McMillan of the popular blog Small Dead Animals, which was recently named the #3 political blog in Canada.
The effectiveness and optics of a waste energy campaign are self-evident. As fellow Law is Cool contributor Will McNair (@willmcnair) tweeted, “that’s like dismissing the efficacy of the gun registry by shooting someone.”
McNair's Gun Registry Tweet
Progressive bloggers were quick to respond to the conservatives’ contrariness. Having learned how to play these situations from “opposite day” in elementary school, one leftist blogger called for a counter-counter-campaign called “Don’t Stab Yourself in the Face Hour 2009“. As of writing, no conservative bloggers have taken the bait. (Note: Law Is Cool and its contributors do not support the stabbing of any body part.)
So what does this little episode teach us? First, it puts into sharp focus the extent to which political partisans are willing to do incredibly assinine things in defence of their ideologies. Second, it reminds us that there are still a great many people who do not believe that human-induced climate change is a reality. Third, it suggests that the blogosphere is in dire need of a more, shall we say, Law-Is-Cool-esque level of discourse.
