There is no doubt that in a military force of the size of the US Army there are bound to be a few borderline crackpots. However I think that the idea that a fair number of them are also members of white supremacist social networking services should be just a tad discomforting.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a Alabama base watchdog service that tracks hate groups has compiled a book that contains the online profiles of at least 40 newsaxon.org users who proudly display that they are members of the US Armed Forces. On Friday  the SPLC will be presenting its finding to the key members of congress who chair the House and Senate committees overseeing the armed forces. At that point they well be urging the Pentagon to crack down on these affiliations.

“In the wake of several high-profile murders by extremists of the radical right, we urge your committees to investigate the threat posed by racial extremists who may be serving in the military to ensure that our armed forces are not inadvertently training future domestic terrorists,” Morris Dees, SPLC co-founder and chief trial counsel, wrote to the legislators. “Evidence continues to mount that current Pentagon policies are inadequate to prevent racial extremists from joining and serving in the armed forces.”

Source: Stars & Stripes – Watchdog group: Dozens of active-duty troops found on neo-Nazi site.

Mark Potock the editor of the report isn’t expecting much of a reaction from the Pentagon given past experiences where the Pentagon has basically shrugged it off and refused to look into the matter in any serious fashon.

On the newsaxon.org website, which Potok termed “a racist version of Facebook run by the National Socialist Movement,” many participants list their branch of service, base location and hometown on colorful pages festooned with Nazi art and Confederate battle flags. Some say they have served or will soon be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Several include pictures of themselves in camouflage combat uniforms.

One participant under the username “WhitePride85,” who said he is a 24-year-old staff sergeant from Madison, Wis., wrote: “I have been in the Army for over 5 years now … I am a SSGT … I have been in Iraq and Kuwait … I love and will do anything to keep our master race marching. I have been a skinhead forever.”

Source: Stars & Stripes – Watchdog group: Dozens of active-duty troops found on neo-Nazi site.

If this kind of thing is prevalent in the arm forces it makes one wonder just how may deaths in places like Iraq and Afghanistan were honest mistakes or the result of supremacist hatred.

Some active-duty soldiers members of white supremacist social network is a post from: The Inquisitr

I realize that everyone is pretty well in SxSW mode these days and this post will probably go under the radar but something is going on in the Twittersphere that is profoundly disturbing. Yesterday morning Jason Calacanis posted a message in his Twitter stream that he would be willing to fork over $120,000 a year for one of the 20 slots in the Twitter Suggested Users listing. It is this listing that is presented to every newcomer to Twitter as suggestions of people they should follow.

Jason’s belief is that given time these twenty slots will be worth $1 Million a year – almost Super Bowl commercial level. Now he could very well be right and for those people using Twitter as part of their overall brand building having your name in front of every single new person signing up for Twitter could end up being worth a lot of money. However if Twitter was to go down this road the repercussions would be felt all the way through Social Media.

Last night as I was following this story and trying hard to fight off a nasty cold I posted a comment on FriendFeed were I said

“this bullshit about buying a place in Twitter Suggested Followers is really pissing me off”

This led into a very interesting discussion with folks of varying opinions adding in their valuable two cents worth. There were some who thought the whole idea was stupid and if people wanted to waste their money let them. On the flipside we had people like Robert Scoble, Mark Trapp, Daniel J. Pritchett and Todd Hoff engaging in a great discussion of why this is a bad idea. Jason Calacanis even chimed in with a comment about how it was amazing that this one small feature of Twitter was getting so much attention.

The very fact that Calacanis is willing to cough up $250,000 for a slot in that small feature for two years only shows that it isn’t a small feature but rather a very important one. It is also one that Twitter has botched up as they did search on Twitter. Much like Summize did a better Twitter search the same thing is done for suggesting users to follow by MrTweet – all because Twitter for the most part misses the boat on things like this.

In missing this very important part of the service Twitter has left itself open to these type of manipulations by people with the money to do so. Suggested People to Follow should never be based on who can pay the most money for one of those 20 spots. MrTweet shows that some fairly good matching can be down with even the limited amount of information Twitter might have about a new user so there is no reason why Twitter can’t do the same.

Where this whole idea of Suggested Follower payola really proves detrimental is when you understand that Social Media is built around the idea of individual Social Graphs. These graphs are the networks that we have developed naturally over a period of time. They are also extremely fluid as people within our social graphs rise and fall within their own social networks. These graphs are almost organic in nature but by purchasing a spot in something as simple as Twitter’s Suggested Followers Listing these graphs are no longer organic but rather a commodity that can be bought and sold.

By introducing this idea of buying and selling Social Graphs the very basis of Social Media is called into question. In buying that place in front of every set of new eyeballs, and existing ones, those that can afford the price side step the natural organic growth that is integral to Social Media and Social Graphs. Once again the power of money provides an extra advantage that is the very anathema of what Social Media stands for.

In short when rich people like Jason Calacanis makes an offer like this it only goes to show that even the goodie two shoes warm and fuzzy ideals of Social Media and Social Graphs can be bought – in other words it’s just business as usual.

[Graphic: The Social Path]

Social Graph Payola – The Twitter Dilemma is a post from: The Inquisitr

As we move further into a social media world where unlike anytime in the past friends can have a much larger and far ranging impact than before. This isn’t your father’s type of friendship as many of the people we call friends in this social media world are people we most likely haven’t met nor in a lot of case will ever meet in the traditional face-to-face manner. Yet they are becoming an increasingly important influence in our lives.

This effect is especially apparent when it comes to what is referred to as your personal and public social graph. Brad Fitzpatrick in an excellent post outlines what is meant by the term social graph thusly – “the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related” and while Wikipedia doesn’t have a specific Social Graph page they do combine it with social networks in which they state

A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, sexual relationships, kinship, dislike,conflict or trade.

On it’s own a person’s social graph is pretty well a static entity that only changes as you add or subtract contacts from it. On the surface there is really no way to be able to tell if anyone within your networks has gained in ‘value’ within your social graph. By value I mean that a person has found things you have shared or done of value and in some way acknowledged that value you have given them. This acknowledgement in return also raises your value to the people of other networks you might be a part of. The question is how do we show this acknowledgment of value?

When I was checking out a new service called Likaholix the other day something started niggling at the back of my brain about this whole thing of Like and liking things. it wasn’t until the next day that I was able to really get my thinking on it straightened out and what I came up with can be best summed up in something I said to Hutch Carpenter in a comment thread about Brian Solis’ post I Like You! The Emerging Culture of Micro Appreciation

‘Like’ will become the basis for a value added social graph

The thing about social graphs is that they are basically flat – everyone within your social graph is on a level field which makes it very hard to be able to pinpoint those who add value to your graph and those who just hang around. As well right now your value within someone else’s social graph is just as static as those people in your social graph with the only differentiation coming from the number of followers / friends you might have. this kind of value system is too easily gamed to be any real indicator of one’s ability to add value to a social graph.

This changes though if we look at the idea of Likes being a value indicator that increases your value within a social graph. The idea being that as information you have shared whether it be on FriendFeed, Twitter or Facebook is liked by others within those social media circles your overall value to others is increased. You in effect bubble up through other people’s social graphs as a value added friend and in turn make their social graph more valuable.

So rather than Like being just a casual thing we do as a way to bookmark something we are in fact indicating to others that we think this person is a valuable part of their social graph. Like has become a value indicator – a digg marker of your social graph so to speak. This in turns turns that flat 2D social graph into a vibrant living three dimensional entity and a whole new dimension to what Social Media and our social graphs are and their effects on our lives.

The Social Graph and the value of Like is a post from: The Inquisitr