The Vangelis NewsRoom » Twitter

Incroyable! France in quest to purge word “hashtag” from Twitter

Bretos Margetis — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:49:04 +0000

The French don’t like how English tech jargon is invading their language, and now Les Bleus’ language police have handcuffed the common Twitter term “hashtag,” according to reports.

France’s Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie have announced that all government references to hashtagged words and phrases, word groupings prefixed by the symbol “#,” will now use the French term “mot-dièse,” The Local reported.

The Gallic-flavoured replacement for hashtag means “sharp word” and French language authorities have defined it as “a series of characters preceded by the # symbol,” according to the English-language news site, which is based in France.

While the use of hashtags on Twitter has helped popularise the term with a wide audience, hashtagging words and phrases didn’t actually originate with the micro-blogging service. In fact, using the “#” symbol to label a discussion topic appears to have started on Internet Relay Chat boards sometime in the middle of the last decade, though the practice quickly caught on with Twitter users in the service’s early days.

Perhaps predictably, the reaction from French Twitter users has been less than enthusiastic, according to the Huffington Post, which dug up several tweets mocking the new term.

The commission’s attempt to scrub a popular English word from the French language is hardly unusual.

France has long taken a very aggressive approach to policing the French language and protecting it from unwanted foreign words. More often than not, they are English words that some linguistic purists believe will have a negative impact on “French word formation, phonetics and grammar, not just terminology,” as the Huffington Post noted.

But whether such a heavy-handed approach has helped the growth of French or hindered it is debatable. Some critics of institutions like the Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie have argued that over the past few centuries, English in particular has rocketed past French to become the world’s lingua franca (ironically enough) because it has no central authority shaping it rather than in spite of that fact.

Whatever the case may be, the tiff over hashtags appears to be about more than just maintaining the purity of the French language. Earlier this week, a French court ordered Twitter to identify the authors of racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic tweets, with specific examples citing hashtagged terms like #UnBonJuif (a good Jew) and #SiMonFilsEstGay (if my son is gay), and #SiMaFilleRamèneUnNoir (if my daughter brings home a black guy).

The micro-blogging service must comply with the court’s ruling “within the framework of its French site,” the AFP reported.

A Twitter spokesman said it was “currently reviewing the court’s decision.”

by Damon Poeter

The Pope tweets for the first time, blessing his online followers

Bretos Margetis — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 15:32:51 +0000

The Pope has officially tweeted for the first time, saying that he was “pleased to get in touch”, as the number of his followers passed more than one million.

At 10.30am GMT on Wednesday, Benedict XVI, 85, sent his his first 140-character “pearl of wisdom” from his iPad via his official account@pontifex.

“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart,” read the inaugural tweet of the 85-year-old pontiff.

He delivered it from a tablet computer at the end of a general audience in the Vatican, after an official announced: “And now the Pope will tweet!”

By Nick Squires, Rome

Twitter resets passwords after possible hacking

Bretos Margetis — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 16:03:31 +0000

An unknown number of Twitter users have been asked to change their passwords for fear that their accounts may have been hacked.

According to CNET, users have been sent an email from the site warning that “your account may have been compromised by a website or service not associated with Twitter. We’ve reset your password to prevent others from accessing your account.”

TechCrunch‘s Twitter account seems to have been one of those hacked, as suspicious messages appeared on their feed earlier today promoting work from home scams.

The company did not confirm whether any accounts have been hacked but the security alert has affected a few high profile accounts.

“Got an e-mail from twitter telling me to change my password because they thought my account had been hacked. So I’ve changed it, but the only evidence of hacking I can find is that my tweet about my Observer column last Sun has disappeared. Weird,” wrote British comedian David Mitchell.

A post by TweetSmarter on Wednesday revealed that in some cases when “large numbers of Twitter accounts have been hijacked,” the company sends out these emails en masse, even to those whose accounts that may not have been affected.

by Monira Matin,

Caution on Twitter urged as Britons barred from US

Bretos Margetis — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:55:54 +0000

Post-9/11 USA is highly cautious of any perceived threat, Abta said

Holidaymakers have been warned to watch their words after two British friends were refused entry to the US on security grounds after a tweet.

Before his trip, Leigh Van Bryan wrote that he was going to “destroy America”.

He insisted he was referring to simply having a good time – but was sent home.

Trade association Abta told the BBC that the case highlighted that holidaymakers should never do anything to raise “concern or suspicion in any way”.

The US Department for Homeland Security picked up Mr Bryan’s messages ahead of his holiday in Los Angeles.

The 26-year-old bar manager wrote a message to a friend on the micro-blogging service, saying: “Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America.”

He told the Sun newspaper that he and his friend Emily Bunting were apprehended on arrival at Los Angeles International Airport before being sent home.

“The Homeland Security agents were treating me like some kind of terrorist,” Mr Bryan said.

“I kept saying they had got the wrong meaning from my tweet.”

No joke

Abta, which represents travel companies in the UK, said holidaymakers need to learn to be ultra-cautious when it comes to talking about forthcoming trips, particularly after 9/11.

“Posting statements in a public forum which could be construed as threatening – in this case saying they are going to “destroy” somewhere – will not be viewed sympathetically by US authorities,” it told the BBC.

“In the past we have seen holidaymakers stopped at airport security for ‘joking’ that they have a bomb in their bag, thoroughly questioned and ending up missing their flights, demonstrating that airport security staff do not have a sense of humour when it comes to potential risk.”

In another tweet, Mr Bryan made reference to comedy show Family Guy saying that he would be in LA in three weeks, annoying people “and diggin’ Marilyn Monroe up”.

Mr Bryan told the newspaper that he was questioned for five hours about his Twitter messages.

‘Tweeter account’

After the interview, Homeland Security’s reported: “Mr Bryan confirmed that he had posted on his Tweeter website account that he was coming to the United States to dig up the grave of Marilyn Monroe.

“Also on his tweeter account Mr Bryan posted he was coming to destroy America.”

Paul Chambers was fined after posting a message about Robin Hood Airport

The US Customs and Border Protection agency said in a statement that it tried to maintain a balance between “securing our borders while facilitating the high volume of legitimate trade and travel that crosses our borders every day”.

It added: “We strive to achieve that balance and show the world that the United States is a welcoming nation.”

Mr Bryan is not the only person to suffer from a misjudged tweet. In January 2010, Paul Chambers tweeted that he would blow snow-affected Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster “sky high!” if it was not reopened in time for him to see his girlfriend.

He was fined £385 plus £2,600 in costs – a sum which actor Stephen Fry offered to pay on Mr Chambers’ behalf.

Twitter never contacted me says fake Wendi Deng

Bretos Margetis — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:31:21 +0000

The Twitter verification process is under scrutiny after the user who created the Wendi Deng spoof account, says it was marked ‘verified’ without him being contacted.

Wendi Deng, Rupert Murdoch’s wife, has had a fake Twitter account set up in her name which Twitter verified as genuine yesterday with a blue tick. The blue tick has subsequently been removed.

By Emma Barnett, Digital Media Editor

12:44PM GMT 04 Jan 2012

1 Comment

The Twitter account, which was set up in the name of Rupert Murdoch’s wife, shortly after the media mogul joined the service on New Year’s Eve, was exposed as fake yesterday, despite have been officially verified as genuine by the microblogging service.

Both Murdoch’s and ‘Deng’s’ accounts received a blue tick from the service, which is only given to high profile people to denote that the account is genuine.

However, despite carrying a tick for a couple of days, Twitter subsequently removed the blue icon from the @Wendi_Deng account.

The anonymous blogger, who is male, British and lives in London, but does not wish to be named, told The Telegraph, that Twitter had failed to get in touch with him before, during or after they wrongly verified the account.

He said: “Twitter never got in touch either before verifying, after verifying, or after realising their mistake… I have asked them to DM [direct message] me, email me, etc to explain what happened. They haven’t.”

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at British internet security firm Sophos, thinks Twitter’s whole verification process has been called into question.

“Twitter needs to ask some serious questions as to how the bogus Wendi Deng account ended up being verified, without even the knowledge of the account owner,” he said.

“Although no harm was done on this occasion, the incident makes a mockery of the ‘verified account’ process – as other users are likely to trust the content posted under these profiles more than others, and it is possible to imagine how someone with more malicious intentions could have taken advantage of the situation. This is a warning sign to Twitter to improve procedures.”

Yesterday a Twitter spokesman said: “We don’t comment on our verification process but can confirm that the @wendi_deng account was mistakenly verified for a short period of time. We apologise for the confusion this caused.”

The blogger also admitted that neither News International nor anyone from Rupert Murdoch’s office had been in touch with him, despite the press team at NI having confirmed the Wendi Deng account was genuine to several journalists.

He has continued to refuse to identify himself, telling The Telegraph: “There seems to be a desire/need for me to BE somebody – an aspiring comedian, a journalist, someone on a mission to trip up Twitter or NI [News International].

“I’m not. I’m just an average Twitter user with, perhaps, a bit more intelligence about a social media than some. That’s it.”

He explained to The Telegraph that it was a coincidence that just after ‘@Wendi_ Deng’ told @rupertmurdoch to delete a tweet about the British having too many holidays, that the tweet was then deleted.

The blogger said he will shut down the fake account, which attracted more than 10,000 followers in a several hours, “soon”, but he plans to keep it active for a bit longer.