#SongbirdStories - The Rest from the Nest of #SocialMedia

Happy Halloween! As you're reading this, the witching hour will likely be fast approaching, and winter is drawing ever closer. If you are consumed with fears of how you're going to survive the night, or whether your grain supplies will see you through the long night, perhaps it would help to satiate yourself with all the social media news we didn't manage to cover earlier in the week. Rest assured, it's been an interesting one.

Burmese Poet on the Run After Outlandish Facebook Post

The Mirror

In perhaps the weirdest story of the week, a poet from Burma named Maung Saungkha has been forced to go into hiding after some of his work was posted on Facebook and pushed the wrong button, so to speak. The offending poem contained the suggestion that Saungkha had the president's face tattooed to his penis. Personally, I'd be flattered, if unsettled, but apparently the president wasn't cool with it. The line doesn't even directly mention the current Burmese president (Thein Sein), but he's obviously decided that it was a reference to him, and Saungkha's house has even been raided as a result of this.

#ISaluteWhitePeople Sends Twitter into Disarray

Reuters

Yeah, racism has reared its ugly, narrow-eyed head on Twitter again. It's difficult to say where #ISaluteWhitePeople actually kicked off, but at some stage or another it was hijacked by social justice campaigners, which only served to irritate the white pride supporters who had been banding about in the first place. It seemed to be acting as an offshoot of the Star Wars boycott that had kicked off the week before, as thousands of users (read: idiots) lambasted the upcoming film as 'anti-white propaganda'.

Lenin Gets the Sith Treatment

LENIN has been joined to the DARK SIDE))) ехВождь преобразился в Темного Лорда! ))) Ржал ))) @ Завод Прессмаш #darthvader #darklord #anakin #skywalker #ленин #lenin #памятник #monument #fun #отакої #october #autumn #осень #fall #жовтень #октябрь #поскот #odessa #одесса #ukraine #україна #теперьтывиделвсе

A photo posted by @fastorius on Oct 23, 2015 at 2:28am PDT

The Lenin selfie trend was immensely popular in Russia, but Ukraine weren't quite so down with it. Revolutionary or not, he still represents Russian politics and Ukraine aren't on friendly terms with them at the moment, and there's currently an initiative in place to get as many of the thousands of Lenin statues across the nation (yes, thousands) removed. One guy decided to be a bit more inventive, and set about converting one of the statues of everyone's favorite Bolshevik into Darth Vader. He succeeded, and even implanted a wireless broadcaster into the helmet. You couldn't make it up.

Gun Traffickers Caught Plying Their Trade on Twitter

Gearpatriot.com

Turns out it is possible to be that stupid, I owe you a coke, Smithers. Three teens from New Jersey stand accused of using Twitter to sell firearms. It wasn't even a verbal exchange, an actual image of the gun on sale was tweeted between the two parties. Both of them stand accused of a whole range of other crimes now, but it was the Twitter gat racket that tripped them up. Wouldn't you know it.

Creed is the First Film to Get a Dedicated Twitter Moments Feed

Adweek

We've been rabbiting on about project lightning/moments for months now, but when it actually came out proper it did feel like something of a damp squib. This might up being quite a good test of its effectiveness, as the Rocky pseudo-sequel Creed has been given a featured slot. Thus far it's all pretty standard stuff, but it's more of a showcase to advertisers than anyone, really.

Users Advised to Check Settings After Facebook's Beefy Search Engine Update

tjcnewspaper.com

Facebook have massively overhauled their search functionality so that people can seek out specific user posts in just about any search engine. It's a big deal, but it's worth bearing in mind that not everybody necessarily wants every status update they ever posted to be trawled over by some random stranger. As such, they have introduced a new privacy setting which keeps all future posts away from that, if needs be.

The White Moose Cafe Turns a Feud with Vegans into Good Publicity

Buzzfeed

Being vegan is a choice, born out of personal conviction, rather than any kind of necessity. With that in mind, behaving with a sense of entitlement is unwise. Obviously this had been happening a lot at the The White Moose in Dublin, because in August he posted on Facebook to ask that vegans planning on eating there to give some advance warning if they wanted something specially prepared for them. It was clearly aimed at a particular customer, and when she caught wind of it a pitched battle began between the restaurant owner and a small armada of angry vegans. The latter were clearly in the wrong, as most of The White Moose's posts were clearly in jest, yet the response came in the form of verbal abuse and even death threats. The internet being what it is, The White Moose is now reporting a boom in sales thanks to the increased publicity brought about by this bizarre incident. Poetic justice? Sure, why not.

Facebook are Testing Live Sports Updates on Messenger

The Next Web

In the latest development in the saga of Facebook Messenger, the blues have been road testing a sports update function. By 'subscribing' to the MLB world series, an update stream which behaves like a one-to-one conversation will keep you updated on the latest developments in the world series either directly or via push notification. No word yet on when it will come out proper.

#Drakereactions

We had to mention this. If you didn't already know, Drake recently released the music video to 'Hotline Bling', a maddeningly brilliant affair which involved the man himself doing perhaps the strangest dance ever conceived in a room that looks like the inside of a mood cube. DIY editors have since gone completely mental with it, blowing up social media with their inspired reworkings of the David Brent-esque routine. The Wii Tennis one is my favorite. 

Callum Davies

Callum is a film school graduate who is now making a name for himself as a journalist and content writer. His vices include flat whites and 90s hip-hop. Follow him @CallumAtSMF

Contact us on Twitter, on Facebook, or leave your comments below. To find out about social media training or management why not take a look at our website for more info: TheSMFGroup.com