Did the Coffee County School Board do the right thing by not extending the contract of Schools Director Kenny Casteel?

	Yes
	No
	The board's reason behind its decision should have been made clear

Social media stops bad bills in Congress

Written by C Bret Campbell | 25 January 2012

Well, I spent a while wondering what to write on this week, and then "SOPA Day" happened. This Wednesday, thousands of online protesters joined together in a unified effort, to get the attention of Congress, and show their displeasure over SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Internet Provider Act). Facebook was full, twitter was buzzing, G + was nonstop, the buzz everywhere was all about SOPA and PIPA, but it wasn't just social media channels that got involved.

Thousands of sites blacked out their headers, denied access, or even redirected visitors to petition the government officials to vote against SOPA and PIPA. Google blacked out their header, Wikipedia blacked out their front page, Wordpress and thousands more participated in a myriad ways. Social media sites were full of conversation, links to news articles. Their were insightful and ranting posts and blogs written by professionals, hacks, and politicians. And there were quite a few surprises. Wednesday, we saw an amazing impact made on the national political scene in one day. Due to the resistance to the bills which was openly displayed all over the next on "SOPA Day", even co-sponsors of the bills decided to remove their backing! Republicans, and Democrats alike, bailed as fast as they could to distance themselves from the subject. They have proven that they do at least understand the power the net and social media can have.

SOPA and PIPA have nice-sounding names, but are written in such a way that they would practically destroy privacy and the use of the internet, as we know it. This is not the place to get into the details. They aren't getting much TV coverage, but you can find all kinds of info on the net. Educate yourself. In other social media news, Facebook anounced that over sixty new services will be rolled out in their new "Open Graph Sharing", effective immediately. So, you should be seeing all kinds of interesting new stories in your news feed, by the time you read this.

Now, onward with this week's "Social Media Tip" ! This one was inspired by the chick with the up-turned bottle of booze in her profile picture - you know the girl that was complaining about her boss, how bad her hang-over was hurting her head, and wondering aloud why she could not find a new job...

Tip #1: Change that Picture!

Tip #2: Control who sees your posts: when you post on facebook, at the bottom right of the post-entry box, is a dropdown menu that controls these settings. It is right beside the "post" button. Take a few minutes, organize your friends into groups, and use them to share posts selectively. controlling post privacy on facebook That way, if you absolutely Must post the picture of what your friends drew on your belly while you were "asleep" in the floor, at least you can keep your boss, or mom, from seeing it. When you use this button to select privacy for a post, the setting you choose will be kept as the default for your next post. Well, I hope that helped a little bit.

Don't forget to send your questions to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , I'll answer as many as I can. I sure got a lot of them via telephone, this week. And of course you can subscribe to C Bret Campbell's updates on facebook, or leave your comments on the online version of this column.