Last week the social media world was shocked by the video of an English woman throwing a cat into a bin. The video was posted on YouTube and this woman became the centre of a media uproar. Now a week later and another movie has just appeared on YouTube showing a girl throwing puppies into a river in Bosnia. In fact this new video makes the ‘cat bin lady’ seem like an upstanding citizen. The outcry in the social media world has come quickly and strongly; in fact the response has been so extreme that the admin at Reddit is warning about social media users forming ‘lynch mobs’.

It is believed that the girl’s brother filmed her disposing of the puppies into the river. They both have managed to hide their identity so far, but the brother has posted that they did this heinous act in order to ‘protect their health’. At the moment there are hundreds of thousands of people across the social media world attempting to establish their true identity and it seems like only a matter of time before this happens. The response to the act has been even more extreme because of the glee on the girl’s face as she attempts to kill the puppies – she is not the kind of person you would probably want to meet in a dark alley.

It is worrying that people are willing to torture animals and then post it to YouTube – we really do live in a sick world. It would make you wonder if there is going to be more copycat acts; people looking for a bit of attention. There is no doubt that posting a video of yourself torturing animals would be a sure way of gaining at least five minutes of fame – sad but true.

Many long term users of Digg are currently in revolt against this social media site. It is being called the ‘digger revolt’ and it has come about due to recent changes made at the website. These changes mean that the site can no longer be controlled by a small group of users, but instead intends to be more inclusive. This change though has made a lot of regular users angry about their loss of control and they are currently attempting to harm the website in revenge.

The digger revolt does not involve any physical violence; Kevin Rose has not needed to go into police protection – at least not yet anyway. The revolt is more about trying to lure other users away to other social media sites like Reddit.com and posting articles critical of the new Digg. The protesters want things returned to how they used to be. At the start Digg was blocking a lot of the protest but it now seems to be just letting it flood the website; it is not nice to watch and is sure to damage the reputation of the site.

This current revolt is fascinating to watch and just goes to show how much power users have on a website like Digg. Maybe those in charge of social media sites like FaceBook should sit up and listen – if they push their users too far they too could be looking at a revolt. In this instance you have to feel a bit sorry for Digg though, they are only trying to improve the website and make it a bit fairer.  Digg had turned into an almost exclusive group of users who seemed to dominate everything – in some ways their current revolt can seem a bit childish; like a baby throwing their rattle out of a pram.

A train loving cat called Lilou decided to go on a solo mission to Dublin this week. To do this she hopped on a local train and eventually ended up at Pearse Street station in the city. The clever cat managed to evade ticket inspectors, but upon arriving in the city realised that she had nowhere to go. Meanwhile her owner realised that she had disappeared and became frantic. The lost looking cat came to the attention of staff at Pearse Street station – they were at a loss about what to do with her until a clever idea began to hatch.

Most of us these days are fans of social media and the staff at Pearse Street station were betting on this. They began tweeting about the discovered cat. It seemed like a long shot but it actually worked. To further help with the discovery of the owner they were able to use close circuit TV to find out where the cat had jumped on the train. This information along with a photo was all that was needed for their Tweets to be effective. Later that day they owner and cat were reunited. The staff even gave the cat a photo-ID travel pass so that she doesn’t need to bunk the trains in future.

This type of story is always nice to hear and it great to hear how social media continues to improve our lives. It is just so useful to be able to contact a lot of people quickly and share information. This will likely not be the only time that social media will be used to reunite people with pets. It has even been used to reunite missing people with their families and friends. With so much bad news in the world it is always great to hear a story like this one.

Privacy fears have driven a group of New York University students to create a new alternative to FaceBook. Diaspora is due to be launched in September and this will be an open source social media site that not only intends to equal FaceBook but eclipse it.  You have probably heard all the recent hysteria about FaceBook reaching over half a billion users, and this might have people believing that Diaspora is facing an impossible task if it wants to compete. The reality is though that there are probably many people who would jump ship if they were going to something better. Most of us are not happy with the current privacy issues and are just putting up with it.

The money for the creation of Diaspora has all come from donations; they managed to get over $100,000. This money has all been put to good use and we expect to see the fruit of these efforts in the not too distant future. Once it is released it will be up to the user to decide what content it will include – this puts privacy back in the hands of the user. For those of us who have concerns that FaceBook is getting a bit above itself we will be watching with interest.

I’m eagerly awaiting the release of Diaspora but find it hard to even guess what type of impact it will have. Maybe it will just have novelty value for a few weeks and people will hardly take any notice of it. On the other hand though, this could be something that really gets big and will prove to be a serious challenge to FaceBook. If this does happen then we can probably expect that those good folks on FaceBook will need to take their user’s privacy concerns a lot more seriously.

In the past it was possible for people to get away with all types of evil acts. The sad fact is that it is possible to do lots of bad things without breaking the law. That is why it is so nice to see the wicked woman who stuck a neighbour’s cat in a bin is getting the attention she deserved. Apparently she hasn’t broken any laws, but few would doubt that she deserves some type of payback. Luckily her wicked ways were caught on a close-circuit camera and are now being viewed across the social media world. It is doubtful that even a person this nasty will be able to escape at least a bit of shame.

Mary Bale has achieved a level of celebrity that few talented people manage in their lifetime. Her only claim to fame is that she likes to stick people’s pets into bins. This sorry excuse for a human being claims that she did the dirty deed because she thought it was funny; the fact that the cat was left there for over fifteen hours means that most people don’t see the funny side. Her later comment that ‘it was only a cat’ isn’t helping to lower the amount of outrage felt against her.

As soon as the video of Mary Bale’s actions hit YouTube there was an outcry and this led to protesters appearing at her door. The police have needed to intervene because of the threat to her life. Some people do seem to be taking it to extremes and it is good that the FaceBook page that wanted her killed has been removed. Maybe this will warn people that random acts of cruelty can be punished even if you are not breaking the law – most serial killers start off by torturing pets.

A new website called mideastyouth.com has been created to allow young Muslims to have their say. Many of these young people feel that they are being treated very unfairly by the media in the west and so aim to use social media as a way to redress the balance. It is hoped that this new website will encourage Muslims to join in the debate and will hopefully increase their participation in other social media outlets. This approach makes a lot of sense because it is only by people talking to people that we can get past the media filters that create distorted pictures of other groups.

The recent carry-on in New York with a proposed mosque near the old site of the Twin Towers shows just how much misunderstanding there is between Muslims and the rest of the world. The media has to be viewed as paying a huge role in this recent hysteria and at present the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is probably the lowest it ever has been – at least since the crusades anyway. The only way to get beyond these misunderstanding is by encouraging communication; something that the media seems to fail miserably at doing.

I think the problem with many groups in the world is that we just don’t understand one another; we fail to see our common humanity. One of the great benefits of social media is that it breaks down barriers and allows us to see where each other are coming from. Hopefully in the coming months we will get to hear what young Muslims have to say and this way there will be less need to rely on stereotypes. There is little doubt that Islam had been demonised in recent years, but hopefully the tide will turn in the not so distant future.

When the CEO of Google speaks a lot of people listen. It may come a bit of a shock though, to hear him suggest that people may need to change their names because of their previous interactions on social media. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Eric Schmidt warns that people have now put so much information about themselves on the web that it may have serious consequences for their future. It may get so bad that people will need to change their name upon reaching graduation.  This will be needed to avoid our social media history coming back to bite us.

The teenage years are a time when many individuals rebel and say all types of strange things – these days we automatically publish even our wildest notions directly into our social media feeds. It will soon be possible for bosses to access all this information and something we said on a gloomy Wednesday when we were thirteen could prevent us from getting a job in our twenties. It really is scary and even things that we said as a joke could completely ruin us – many bosses have no sense of humour.

The idea of a whole generation of children needing to change their name might sound a bit extreme but there could be a lot of truth in this. It is not only the young that need to worry, because adults are just as capable of publishing inadvisable information about themselves on the web. Who hasn’t had a flaming match on a web forum? We lose control and forget that anyone could be reading these comments. This is why it is vital that we always consider everything we publish to the web as being things that anyone will be able to see and judge us on.

It might be only a small front in the overall battle for ideas but North Korea has now turned to social media to further its cause.  It is not clear who exactly is responsible for the recent YouTube videos and Twitter Tweets promoting their cause, but it seems likely to be somebody in the government. We have so little information available about this country that the appearance in social media is quite interesting. The content though doesn’t really rise above a bit of unsophisticated name calling aimed at the US and South Korea.

The series of video clips available on YouTube are posted by an entity known as ‘Uriminzok’; apparently this means ‘our nation’. They show scenes of a country that seems stuck in a previous era before the cold war. If these were put out by the North Korean tourist board then they would certainly want to rethink their campaign. Some of the other videos are meant to be a bit satirical and aim to mock the US and South Korean leaders – they are pretty lame attempts.

It seems that the North Koreans want to tell their side of the story, and this has to be good. Maybe they have been given the short end of the stick, and maybe we are not getting a clear view of the country. From the videos that have been provided so far though, there seems to be little that is going to change people’s mind. Hopefully this attempt at engagement with the rest of the world will be a two-sided affair. That way the North Koreans and their government can get to hear about what the rest of the world thinks about them. One of the great things about the internet is that it can be used to allow people to escape whatever bubble they have been trapped inside.

A recent survey in the UK has shown that an increasing number of people are finding out about the news from social media sites like FaceBook.  It has been known for a while that people are favouring online news sources over the traditional newspaper, but this move to relying on social media for breaking news is new.

A study by the Insight, Consultancy & Delivery (iCD) research group looked at the habits of 1,000 people. It found that over half of them got their news from online websites like the BBC online, but it also found that 18.5% of people use social media as their primary source of news. This is an impressive increase on previous studies and seems to indicate a likely increase in the future. Now half a billion people have joined FaceBook, and it has become an important part of people’s online lives.

The idea of people getting their news form FaceBook sounds a bit odd to me – if I’m honest. There are an awful lot of misinformed people out there, and this would make it easier for them to spread their ignorance. You also get a lot of people with their own agendas who will use social media to push their causes. It is true that even media like the BBC is biased, but at least the journalists are required to supply facts and do have a code of conduct which they are expected to adhere to. People using social media sites like FaceBook can post whatever they like and a good proportion of people are likely to believe them.  One of the most exciting things about the web was the possibility that it could widen our horizons, but maybe it will end up having the opposite effect – especially if we all start getting our news from FaceBook.

A report in the Guardian newspaper this week reports that one in ten web users in the UK now use Twitter. This might not be quite as impressive as the statistics for people joining FaceBook, but Twitter is showing impressive growth; not only in the UK but around the entire world. In fact there are now believed to be 93 million people around the world who use Twitter. It seems to be in Asia that the biggest increase in Twitter accounts is occurring. It should also be remembered that these figures don’t take into account all those people who regularly use Twitter from devices like Tweetdeck.

Twitter is a bit like Marmite; either you love it or hate it. Many people just don’t get and even some famous Twitterers have given up in frustration because they no longer understand what it is all about. How can any meaningful conversations occur when you are only allowed 140 characters? And what’s with all the links? It can sometimes seem like everyone on Twitter is trying to sell something. Despite all this though there is a lot of fun to be had when you get into it. Otherwise why would so many people spend so much time using it?

Personally I have a lot of time for Twitter. It feels a bit more on the edge than Twitter and I like the fact that so many people just don’t get it. In fact it is really pleasing when famous people try to boost their careers by using Twitter, make a mess of it, and then have to admit that they don’t really get it. There is probably no other social media outlet where so many public figures have announced they are no longer going to be using it.