Bring Twitter, and leave the openness to them
Check it out. The State featured our new site SCTweets.com.
Lawmakers have decided the people of South Carolina cannot have enough transparency this year, so they have turned to the Twitter Internet networking service to further open the doors of government.
Twitter users post short updates to their accounts, letting those “following” know what’s on their mind or what they are up to.
A handful of S.C. pioneers have taken it a step further, pulling together all those updates in one place: SCTweets.com. (A “tweet” is Twitterese for an update). The site now has about two dozen elected officials and more than four dozen consultants, media, spouses and other politicos in its network.
Readers of SCTweets can learn:
• What state Rep. Nathan Ballentine, R-Richland, thinks of the current House bill up for debate
• Who U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis is speaking to in Washington, D.C.
• Attorney General Henry McMaster’s latest Internet sex predator arrest
But SCTweets isn’t a one-way conversation. It provides Twitter users a direct, often instant, connection to talk to state leaders. Or you can just sit back and listen.
The lawmakers who Twitter say it is another small step toward more open government and hope it will break down some of the mystery about what goes on in Columbia.
The Buzz hopes those officials really put their money where their mouth is: When leadership asks you to come to Jesus, bring Twitter with you. Start Twittering about those closed-door meetings and caucus events that are closed to the press and public.
MAKING $%^* PAY
State Sen. Robert Ford was rediscovered by Internet bloggers last week, as Web surfers excoriated the Charleston Democrat for filing a bill that makes public profanity a felony.
Actually, Ford’s bill makes publishing profanity in front of minors a felony. (But why be technical, right?)
In one of 65 bills he pre-filed this year, Ford, who may run for governor in 2010, would have cursers, if convicted, pay a $5,000 fine or go to the prison for up to five years.
Net surfers unloaded on the Lowcountry lawmaker, blasting him for threatening to add to overcrowded jails, censorship, and kowtowing to right-wingers to win their support for his bid for governor.
It was all done in language way too explicit to print in a family newspaper. (Ford or not.)