Has Social Media Gone Too Far?

By James Mendez

University of North Texas

Mayborn School of Journalism

Today, we live in an Internet driven world.  This means that anything, and everything, is only a click away. We are able to order food, buy cars and even meet future partners via the Internet. “The Web”, is the life source of not only many individuals, but a ton of companies as well.  Over the past 2 decades, social media has risen up as one of the most influential Internet medias, but has it gone too far?

Graphic via Mashable.com

Since its humble beginnings in 2006, Twitter has become one of the most prominent social media websites, if not the most prominent. You can almost say that, “everyone is on Twitter”. While I feel like the majority of “twitters” use the social media platform in order to gain up-to-date information about close friends, family and celebrities, Twitter has proven that it is much more than that.

Graphic Via SocailMediaFrontiers.com

Twitter is used for much more than just “social media”. Campaigns have been won, laws have been changed, businesses have grown and hundreds of thousands of customers have been won over due to Twitters versatility. However, with that said, there are countries out there trying to shut this social media mogul down.

Graphic Via Vice.com

The 2013 Super Bowl is one many will not soon forget. While the game was close and very entertaining, many viewers only remember Super Bowl XLVII due to the “blackout” that occurred in the Mercedes-Benz Super Dome in New Orleans.

Photo Via NoToTheQuo.com

While this does seem to be the overall pitfall of the 2013 Super Bowl, Oreo made the best of situation with a very well placed tweet.

Graphic Via NoToTheQuo.com

The quickly thought up advertisement was not only retweeted thousands of times, but the company was hailed as having one of the best Super Bowl campaigns of the year.

The Oreo example shows how amazing Twitter can be. However, as I mentioned earlier there are still countries out there, such as Turkey, who are hoping to shut the services Twitter provides down. While this does come after recent criticisms, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erodogan has announced that he hopes to eradicate Twitter ASAP. According to Vice.com, "more than 2.4 million messages were tweeted from the country within three hours of the blackout taking effect."

I hope the prime minister has a lot of social media interns.

What Russia Has Taught Us During the 2014 Winter Olmypics

By James Mendez

University of North Texas

Mayborn School of Journalism

As the Olympics proceed in Sochi, Russia so do the headlines. If we take a leap back in time to three weeks ago before the Olympics started we find the usual “Olympic drama” was definitely not going to miss out on the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Via English Club

If you have been living under a rock, or in your parent’s basement, for the last 6 months, let me update you on what I am talking about.

Back in June of 2013 the Russian Parliament passed a bill that was, and remains to be, one of the most anti-gay pieces of legislation ever passed.

The bill, that was passed on June 30, 2013, bans the, "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors," according to Polymic.com.

The bill also bans gay pride parades, imposes fines to gay right activists and also denies registration to gays looking to join nongovernmental organizations.

When I first saw the following headline, I definitely had to take a second look to make sure what I was reading was actually there. I could not believe that in today’s world, a government would come out and blatantly discriminate against the homosexual community.

Via Huffington Post

Now I will admit that I am personally not a huge supporter of gay rights, however I do believe that all people were created equal, and therefore, should be treated equally.

With that being said, I totally disagree with the Russian Parliaments decision. From a PR perspective I feel like they sunk their own ship. Russia almost immediately felt the backlash from not only Europe but from Barrack Obama Himself.

And while I do not usually agree with anything President Obama says, I do have to agree with him on this one.

Russia made a terrible decision, and to make it worse made that decision when their country was in one of the grandest spotlights, the Winter Olympics.

Since this unraveling, Russia has tried to make things right with the homosexual community, yet, has failed again.

As I mentioned in my last post, we live in a multicultural, multilingual, gay/straight world, and in my opinion, the best option we have is to accept it.