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Portuguese expat living in Brussels since 2003, I'm interested by the intersection of technology, politics, participatory democracy, grassroots movements and human rights.

Say hello with [email protected]

Web Plumber - Internet/Social Media consultant - I make #bots @EUwatchers & @PolBegov | Passionated by #indieweb #makers #CivicTech #dataviz #RSS #Blockchain

twitter.com/RikMende

github.com/rikmendes

www.facebook.com/rickmendesg

www.rmendes.net

keybase.io/mendes

www.paypal.me/rime/25

www.ricardo-mendes.be

about.me/rick.mendes

be.linkedin.com/in/mendesr

 

A 3-minute recap of #HHConnect #Brussels this past week by @davanac

1 min read

Hacks/Hackers Brussels (June 1&2) from Damien Van Achter on Vimeo.


 

Check out the #EURef Data Hub #Twitter #Blurrt

1 min read

2016 EU referendum conversation on Twitter

The Data Hub shows what's driving discussion throughout the campaign, answering that important question: How is it changing over time?

Check out the results in real-time : http://referendum.pressassociation.com/

 

Follow #DemocraticCities #DCENTMadrid Live :

1 min read

 

 

https://twitter.com/X_net_/lists/ciudadesdemocrticas

 
 
 
 

Trying webmention.rocks from Known #indieweb

1 min read

 

protip: don't connect your Twitter account to #Facebook OR your Facebook account to #Twitter = it's ugly. 

3 min read

But worst: if you did connect one way or the other, don't you think it's ridiculous to RT something on Twitter which get sent to Facebook & then Facebook send it back to twitter with a FB.me URL ?????

check out on twitter how it looks like : https://twitter.com/search?q=Retweeted&src=typd

Either you don't use Twitter but still want to syndicate your Facebook activity to twitter and it's fine even if it's ugly because you're forcing everyone to being tracked by Facebook when they click your links on Twitter. 

check out on twitter how it looks like : https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=fb.me&src=typd

OR

You don't use Facebook but still want to syndicate your Twitter activity to Facebook so you connect Twitter to facebook and it's ugly too (yes I'm doing it this way to push twitter updates to a abandonned facebook page.)

the first post is a RT on twitter getting pushed to Facebook. The second post is Tweet pushed to Facebook.

 

So the best solution is either: you use both networks separately and you manage to catch the do's and don't of each network and you try to adapt your content on each network. 

OR

You jump into the bandwagon and you First publish on your OWN site (like I'm doing) and you syndicate to both Facebook and Twitter a COPY of this status update. and you fetch the reactions back to your own blog (like I'm doing here @WithKnown) that's the wonderfull way of managing your online media presence while still retaining control over your data. 

 

But Please, either connect one (facebook to twitter) of the other (twitter to facebook) but DO NOT connect both ! it makes no sense. the protip is don't connect any of them. use an external third party or selfhosted solution to pilot your social media presence. (Known for the best solution you can get)

But it get worse : some people connect their Facebook to Twitter but fail to understand that Twitter don't work the same way as Facebook.

The result is they publish content on Facebook, without any description or status text to pimp the link they are sharing. so it looks fine on facebook but check out how it looks on Twitter : 

 

There is only one way to fix this : disconnect !

OR : add a freakin one text line to allow people to at least imagine what they are going to click on while on Twitter because currently as it is, it does not bring any value to the network, in fact I refuse to click on these type of tweets. I simply ignore them.

People ignore them for a lot of reasons :

they don't want to go to facebook servers

they don't want to be tracked by facebook

they ignore you because your post with a link & without description does not invite them to discover your content.

 
 

Watch Edward @Snowden, @ggreenwald and Noam Chomsky discuss national security and privacy

1 min read

A Conversation on Privacy

The balance between national security and government intrusion on the rights of private citizens will be the topic of a panel discussion featuring renowned linguist and MIT professor Noam Chomsky, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and Intercept co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald. Nuala O’Connor, president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, will act as moderator. Chomsky and Greenwald will appear in person at the event, hosted in Tucson by the University of Arizona College of Behavioral Sciences, while Snowden will appear via videoconference.