Twitter Asks Users to #Reset Passwords, Citing Hacking Issues

Twitter Logo (Twitter)

Twitter may have had a record 20 million tweets about the election on Tuesday, but there are some problems in paradise today for the social media service.

Many Twitter users received an email notification from Twitter asking them to reset their passwords after an unknown website or online service compromised the accounts of many users. A few high-profiled accounts, including TechCrunch’s, were affected.

Once users reset their passwords, naturally, they took to the Twitterverse to complain about having to do it.

“We’re committed to keeping Twitter a safe and open community. As part of that commitment, in instances when we believe an account may have been compromised, we reset the password and send an email letting the account owner know this has happened along with information about creating a new password. This is a routine part of our processes to protect our users,” Twitter said in a statement on its blog.

Twitter, however, admitted that it reset more passwords than it should have. “In this case, we unintentionally reset passwords of a larger number of accounts, beyond those that we believed to have been compromised. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion this may have caused,” the company said.

Twitter also encouraged users to read about how to protect their accounts and make their passwords secure. To reset your password, Twitter recommends users type in the link into your browser to reset your password. Often, hackers can access your password by tracing the original link from the notification.

Many argue that Twitter, like Google, should implement stronger security, including two-factor authentication, which, if enabled, forces users to type in two passwords.  ”We’ve certainly explored two-factor authentication among other security measures, and we continue to introduce features, such as https, to help users keep their accounts secure,” Twitter told TechCrunch.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Twitter: Over 20 Million Election Related Tweets Today

Image credit: @BarackObama/Twitter

Twitter has called its own race. At 10:01 p.m. ET, Twitter announced that it had hit 20 million election-related tweets, making Election Day 2012 the most tweeted-about event in U.S. political history.

As a reference, there were close to 20 million tweets about Hurricane Sandy over the span of last week and 10 million tweets during the first presidential debate. Twitter has not released the exact details on the peaks — it will likely do that tomorrow when all is said and done — but at 9:26 p.m. when the Pennsylvania results were announced there was a peak of 66,019 tweets per minute (TPM) and at around 10:45 p.m. there was a spike of 69,000 TPM.

Throughout the day voting topics have trended on the service, including #stayinline, referring to those standing in the voting lines or urging those to tough out the wait. The impact was also showing on the candidates’ Twitter feeds. As of 10:45 @barackobama had a 123,782 retweets on the following tweet “RT it you’re on #TeamObama tonight.”

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Copyright infringing tweets now withheld, not removed

Twitter changed its legal policy, citing transparency, for tweets taken down by DMCA complains. Twitter now withholds suspected tweets instead of removing them altogether.

Twitter has begun handling DMCA copyright notices in a new way. In a tweet, Twitter announced that the practice of outright removing tweets has been shelved. Instead, the site will notify the offending tweeters with a notice indicating that the tweet has been marked for a DMCA takedown.

We now offer more #transparency in processing copyright reports by withholding Tweets, not removing. Learn more: support.twitter.com/articles/15795.

— Jeremy K. (@jer) November 3, 2012

In the past, Twitter would completely remove the infringing tweet, and retweets and responses would disappear along with it. The new tactic will replace the tweet with a reason explaining its removal, while keeping everything else intact.

To recap the type of content that Twitter will remove, Twitter’s tweet linked to its Copyright and DMCA Policy page which outlines what’s considered copyright infringement:

“Twitter will respond to reports of alleged copyright infringement, such as allegations concerning the unauthorized use of a copyrighted image as a profile photo, header photo, or background, allegations concerning the unauthorized use of a copyrighted image uploaded through our photo hosting service, or Tweets containing links to allegedly infringing materials.”

The way Twitter is handling DMCA takedowns parallel’s Google’s DMCA notifications that show up at the bottom of search results. Results removed from Google results are replaced with an explanation, the number of results removed, and a link to the report from the party responsible for filing the complaint.

To give you an idea of what the tweets will look like Twitter will replace the infringing content with the following explanation:

“This Tweet from [@username] has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder. Learn more: support.twitter.com/articles/15795#”

In the past, infringing tweets would be removed and clicking on a URL of where the tweet used to live, would instead open up a 404 page indicating that the content has been removed altogether.

The change helps to manage the transparency that Twitter wishes to maintain with its content moderating practices, as explained in its policy page:

“In an effort to be as transparent as possible regarding the removal or restriction of access to user-posted content, we clearly mark withheld Tweets and media to indicate to viewers when content has been withheld.”

As a company that’s steadily evolving into a content hub for publishing the latest news, there’s a delicate balance between users and complaining publishers that needs to be maintained to keep both parties relatively happy. Removing content outright discourages users from using Twitter as a content distribution platform, while of course failing to acknowledge and comply with DMCA complaints subjects Twitter to lawsuits. This is one strategy that provides transparency for DMCA takedown notices for all parties involved, including the readers and retweeters of the tweets. It’s also a strategy that can help identify baseless complaints, which has in fact been a common practice on Google.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Procrastinators beware: Twitter map showing last million tweets will take up your time

Maptimize has launched the One Million Tweet Map showing the last million tweets posted around the world – the perfect distraction for procrastinators everywhere.

If you’re a professional procrastinator, you may or may not be delighted to hear about the One Million Tweet Map, giving you yet another opportunity to do something less important than the very important thing you really should be doing.

Powered by Maptimize, a geographical clustering engine for showing and analyzing geolocalized data on online maps, the Twitter map does pretty much what is says on the tin – show the locations of the last million geotagged tweets posted around the world using data pulled from the Twitter API.

Updated in real time, the map is constantly changing, with the latest 20 tweets added at the same time as the oldest 20 are dropped, keeping the tally at around a million.

One cool feature is the ability to zoom in on a cluster, which splits into smaller clusters until, once you’ve zoomed all the way in, you’re presented with a single tweet which you can click on and read. That way, you can explore your own neighborhood to see if anyone close by is tweeting about you, or visit some remote village in Tasmania to see what’s going on there.

But hold on, procrastinators, there’s more to play about with before you return to the (more important) job in hand. Besides the cluster view, you’re bound to want to spend a bit of time also exploring the heat-map view. You can also filter by keywords, hashtags and time. How about that?

OK, that’s all for now, I need to get back to the One Million Tweet Map for no good reason whatsoever.

[via Mashable]

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

1 in 10 Viewers Watched Debates on TV Plus 1 Additional Screen

Image credit: Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo

 Take a look at the constant stream of tweets during the debates (there were 10 million within two hours of the first debate between Obama and Romney), and it’s  obvious that not only are people watching the feuding candidates on TV but  also on their phones, computers  or tablets.

According to a study released by the Pew Research Center for the Press and the People, 85 percent of those who tuned in to the debate last week watched  it on live TV, but 11 percent  followed it online, either on a computer, phone or tablet. That means that one in 10 Americans used the two- or double-screen approach, watching TV while also holding a mobile device (phone or tablet) or computer.

Most of those who were following online were younger. Thirty-two percent of those younger than 40 said they tracked the debate online. The post-debate survey was conducted after the first presidential debate in a series of phone interviews with a national sample of 1,006 adults.

Pew also has some interesting stats when it comes to the social media activity. Only one-third of that 5 percent who followed the debates online said they shared their reactions online via Facebook  or Twitter. Interestingly, there wasn’t a major difference along party lines in technology usage.

More details on the survey can be found on the Pew website, but it’s pretty clear that while the majority continues to stick to the boob tube for these major political events, the smaller, more portable screens are starting to provide another avenue for at least 10 percent.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Obama’s DNC speech sets new political record on Twitter

President Obama helped set a new Twitter record Thursday night, with his DNC speech provoking the most tweets ever for a "political moment."

Twitter went into overdrive Thursday night as masses of its users fired off a ton of tweets during President Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

According to the official Twitter blog, the speech set a new record for “political moments” on the microblogging site, with 52,756 tweets-per-minute being posted at the end of the president’s address.

Adam Sharp, Twitter’s head of government, news, and social innovation, wrote in the post: “The Democratic National Convention has driven an incredible amount of Twitter conversation since the very first day. [At] the close of the official proceedings, we have seen more than 9.5 million tweets sent about the events in Charlotte.”

He added that Thursday alone saw 4 million tweets relating to the convention, a figure equal to the total number sent during the entire duration of last week’s Republican National Convention.

Sharp singled out the moments during Obama’s speech which really got Twitter users going:

- 43,646 tweets for “I’m no longer just the candidate, I’m the President.”

- 39,002 tweets for “I will never turn Medicare into a voucher.”

- 38,597 tweets during a discussion of Medicare

- 37,694 tweets for “We don’t think government can solve all our problems…”

- 34,572 tweets for quips about the Olympics and “Cold War mind warp.”

Sharp assured its users the Twitter blog would be following events closely between now and Election Day in November. “With the conversation about the 2012 election happening on Twitter, the road to Election Day 2012 will be paved in tweets,” he wrote.

It seems that wherever Obama goes, the connected world goes with him. Last week he did a 30-minute ‘Ask Me Anything’ session on Reddit, setting a new record for visitors to the site in the process. In fact, so many people logged on to view Obama’s AMA that the site buckled under the weight of demand, causing it to crash several times over the course of the session.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com