Social media for social good

Image courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

We’ve heard so much via the traditional media about the evils of social media:

• wikileaks threatening our national security
•  Twitter being subpoenaed by the US government for its role in the wikileaks debacle
•  Facebook being a data free-for-all in spite of its privacy settings
•  employees whiling away their employers’ time keeping up with their friends online
• the potential for libel and defamation of character … in a high-profile case which will give further ammunition to the detractors of social media, Courtney Love is to stand trial next month for posting defamatory comments about a fashion designer on Twitter.  (See: Courtney Love’s Twitter case) 

Perhaps for the news media, this is just business as usual – demonstrating the old journalistic adage about man bites dog!  But social media can be a force for good too.  Last year, Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes,  launched Jumo in a philanthropic  bid to link individuals with causes that interest them.

Two of Mashable’s social media awards for 2010 were around social media for social good.

The ‘most creative  social good campaign’  was won by Twitchange,  which offers fans a chance to bid for celebrity mentions and retweets. It has 175 celebrities signed up and claims to have produced over 30 million hits in 30 days last autumn.  

The  ‘most influential social good champion’ was won by actor John Cena, who has been working with the Make-A-Wish Foundation (for children with life-threatening illnesses) since 2004. One of his recent initiatives has involved encouraging people to donate Delta air miles – which he’s already matched with 3 million miles of his own.

I can’t claim to have monitored all the traditional media, but I don’t recall seeing these developments in the newspapers or on TV.  Maybe more of us should stop looking out for the bad and take more note of the good.  For starters, next time I buy something via PayPal on eBay, I’ll remember to tick the ‘donate’ box.