As I was curating TucsonCitizen.com’s Twitter feed during the State of the Union address last night, I noticed that President Barack Obama’s seemingly uncontroversial statement that women ought to receive pay equal to men coincided with a lot of Twitter chatter about women — three specific women, in fact.

One woman who was the subject of much discussion was Gabrielle Giffords. There were many tweets about how her hug with the president brought them to tears. There were also many tweets about how great she looks in red. There were a lot of tweets about the first lady, Michelle Obama, most of them about her crisp blue dress and later, about who designed it and how much it cost. There were several tweets about Hillary Clinton and her appearance – to what degree she had aged, the appeal of her outfit, the wisdom of wearing a headband.

This chatter, at least in the #SOTU feed as I observed it, far outweighed any substantial conversation about these women or their public role. In the context of Obama’s statement, I found it especially disturbing. It’s not that I am against observations of appearance or fashion. In high school, I aspired to be a fashion designer. I do think how one presents oneself is important. But the volume of the how-she-looks chatter struck me as a symptom of the larger problem: Women are still judged disproportionately by how they look, even accomplished women with important policy roles.

Sure, House Speaker John Boehner was the target of a fair amount of superficial chatter about the darkness of his tan and the color of his tie, but there was about an equal number of observations about his behavior, his policy positions and political strategy. The same was not true in regards to three of the high-profile women present that night.

For a broader look at the Twittersphere reaction, check out 10,000 Words’s State of the Union infographic.

The battle over whether Tucson Unified School District ought to allow students to enroll in a Mexican American studies course as anything but an elective has been simmering for months inside the legislative and judicial systems. Students and activists were stirred up about it, but few others seemed to pay all that close attention. But when TUSD’s board voted to end the Mexican American Studies program and began taking the books used to teach those courses out of classrooms, protest erupted.

TUSD denied that its reaction could be fairly characterized as banning books (in TUSD Governing Board President Mark Stegeman’s own words here). Nonetheless, people on the street were talking about what does or does not constitute a book ban, what is or isn’t American and what does or doesn’t spur learning. What was an Arizona issue of limited national interest became an issue that got the attention of people, especially literary people, across the country. Books, we all seem to agree, are important to learning. (Some would take it a step further and argue that they may be a key ingredient in surviving one’s childhood, to cultivating imagination and a sense of opportunity. I can attest that they were for me.)

Once the narrative that books and free speech are good and book bans are Orwellian got established, outrage spread. It was social media, which some describe as itself a threat to general literacy, that helped to fan the flames. Presente.org, which describes itself as a national organization to amplify the political voice of Latino communities, created an online petition, and it has been tweeted and retweeted with incredible speed. What real-world manifestation the social media indignation will take is to be seen. Here’s a small taste of what the feeds looked like today.

That’s after Baton Rouge, Boise, Wichita, Sioux Falls and Cheyenne. But not that far behind New York City, No. 53 on Men’s Health list of the U.S.’s top 100 socially networked cities.

The list has some surprises. Washington, D.C. tops it. Who knew the Capitol would beat out Silicon Valley? And the rest of the top 10: Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Seattle, San Francisco, Orlando, Austin, Boston, Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City??

Are you wondering how exactly Men’s Health came up with this list? Here’s the methodology, as reported by Mashable:

First, Men’s Health figured out each city’s LinkedIn and Facebook users per capita, and then tapped the NetProspex marketing database to figure out each location’s amount of overall Twitter usage.

What do you think? Does Tucson deserve its rather dismal ranking?

a baby, but not Facebook

Names have long been an irresistible topic for me, and in combination with Facebook and revolution, well, I certainly couldn’t pass that one up.

AllFacebook and TechCrunch, two excellent blogs on social media themes, posted today about a just-born Egyptian baby named Facebook. According to Egyptian state-run newspaper Al-Ahram as translated by TechCrunch, the father said the name was a way to “express his gratitude about the victories the youth of 25th of January have achieved and chose to express it in the form of naming his firstborn girl Facebook.”

The new father, Jamal Ibrahim, said that the girl’s family, friends and neighbors in the Ibrahimya region gathered around the newborn to express their continuing support for the revolution that started on Facebook. “Facebook received many gifts from the youth who were overjoyed by her arrival and the new name,” the newspaper reported (via TechCrunch). “A name [Facebook] that shocked the entire world.”

Allow me to paraphrase. Shock in two phases – the ousting of an autocrat 30 years in power, then the naming of a newborn babe. What a legacy! Facebook is unlikely to forget that piece of Egyptian history.

In the United States, the top baby names in 2009 were Jacob and Isabella, according to the Social Security Administration. I was once asked by an African professor to please name my children something that means something. I’m not yet a mother, but my record so far isn’t so good. My favorite stuffed animal was named Bunny.

What do you think?

Is it an honor to be named for a tool that changed the world? Or will she adopt her middle name as soon as she’s old enough to chose?

The State Department made this video available of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Feb. 15 speech.

Some key excerpts:

There is a debate currently underway in some circles about whether the internet is a force for liberation or repression. But I think that debate is largely beside the point. Egypt isn’t inspiring people because they communicated using Twitter. It is inspiring because people came together and persisted in demanding a better future. Iran isn’t awful because the authorities used Facebook to shadow and capture members of the opposition. Iran is awful because it is a government that routinely violates the rights of its people.

The internet has become the public space of the 21^st century – the world’s town square, classroom, marketplace, coffeehouse, and nightclub. We all shape and are shaped by what happens there, all 2 billion of us and counting. And that presents a challenge. To maintain an internet that delivers the greatest possible benefits to the world, we need to have a serious conversation about the principles that will guide us, what rules exist and should not exist and why, what behaviors should be encouraged or discouraged and how.

Now, I know that government confidentiality has been a topic of debate during the past few months because of WikiLeaks, but it’s been a false debate in many ways. Fundamentally, the WikiLeaks incident began with an act of theft. Government documents were stolen, just the same as if they had been smuggled out in a briefcase. Some have suggested that this theft was justified because governments have a responsibility to conduct all of our work out in the open in the full view of our citizens. I respectfully disagree. The United States could neither provide for our citizens’ security nor promote the cause of human rights and democracy around the world if we had to make public every step of our efforts. Confidential communication gives our government the opportunity to do work that could not be done otherwise.

In the last three years, we have awarded more than $20 million in competitive grants through an open process, including interagency evaluation by technical and policy experts to support a burgeoning group of technologists and activists working at the cutting edge of the fight against internet repression. This year, we will award more than $25 million in additional funding. We are taking a venture capital-style approach, supporting a portfolio of technologies, tools, and training, and adapting as more users shift to mobile devices. We have our ear to the ground, talking to digital activists about where they need help, and our diversified approach means we’re able to adapt the range of threats that they face. We support multiple tools, so if repressive governments figure out how to target one, others are available. And we invest in the cutting edge because we know that repressive governments are constantly innovating their methods of oppression and we intend to stay ahead of them.

What do you think? Are Clinton’s comments on WikiLeaks hypocritical? Will the State Department’s strategy be successful? Is it a good idea? Is it possible for a government to completely back openness? I’d love to hear what you think.

The reasons for bloggers to use social media are many, but here are some key points as I see them.

1. To connect directly with your readers. Most of us write to communicate with other people. Isn’t direct contact with people who have read your writing and want to respond to it a good thing? Perhaps the conversation will push that idea at the root of your blog post further. Perhaps even more ideas will result.

2. To build community. Many bloggers choose a subject because they are passionate about it. (There’s not much money in it, after all.) Passion is often related to a desire for change, and that change is often easier to effect by a group than by an individual. Social media helps put us in touch with like-minded people. Sometimes those people are influential – online and/or off – people you may not have direct access to otherwise.

3. To ensure that potential readers can find your work. Search engine optimization has been the name of the game in getting readers to Web sites, but the algorithm being optimized is in constant flux. Social media are increasingly being factored into the formula for determining search results. Plus, broadcasting on more than one channel is not a bad idea. Why not send party invitations to more than one address?

In the wake of revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and social media-aided protests across the Middle East, the State Department has announced a new policy on Internet freedom. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech is set for today. She’s expected to talk about social networks and funding for technologies that would allow people to circumvent policies put in place by repressive governments to curb dissent and organizing on the Internet.

The way the policy could shake out is far from clear. The State Department has in the past been criticized for funding technologies to get around firewalls that resulted in users being more easily tracked by the government. The department has been wary of funding the most popular such technology, which was created by Falun Gong, a group that China characterizes as an evil cult. The group is now getting funding, but the decision took months because of controversy within the State Department about whether it was worth China’s negative reaction.

With this new policy, the State Department is entering new and dangerous territory. The question of whether social media help or harm pushes for democracy is under hot debate. Clay Shirky and Malcolm Gladwell have been trading treatises on the subject for months, and the technology that affect which way the outcome goes change daily. If activists find that social media results in their work being more easily tracked, or worse, detentions or deaths, they presumably will stop using the technologies. But even that is not so clear.

The bottom line, it seems to me, is the resilience and usefulness of the technologies developed. That doesn’t come cheap. So how much is the State Department planning to put on the line?

On a (slightly) related note, the Tucson’s city government is receiving an award today for making good use of the Internet. The Old Pueblo ranked ninth among cities with more than 250,000 residents on the Digital Cities survey.

Twitter logo

A Shorty Award is to go to the best journalist on Twitter. You get to vote. Right now, William Bonner is in the lead. Interesting – a Brazilian twitteiro, even though Larry King and Anderson Cooper are suggested as popular journalists on the awards Web site.

I want to hear from you, too, though you don’t necessarily have to vote. What makes a good tweet? What makes a good tweet from a journalist? Comment here or send me a tweet @TucsonCitizen.