Pew releases social media demographics for 2012

This isn't your mom and dad's Internet anymore. (Credit: LSE Library/Flickr)

This isn’t your mom and dad’s Internet anymore. (Credit: LSE Library/Flickr)

Pew released its research on the demographics of social media users for 2012. Jim Romenesko put them together in a pithy breakdown. Two-thirds of adults who use the Internet use Facebook, which was way ahead of all other sites. Sixteen percent are on Twitter, doubled from November 2010. Young people are more likely to use Facebook and Twitter, and women are more likely to use Facebook than men. Pinterest attracts more white people. Instagram has more African-American and Hispanic users than whites. Though Tumblr brings up the rear with only 6 percent of Internet users, it’s much more popular among young people, with 13 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds online signed up.

CBS agrees to stop tweeting Dorner shootout

Credit: Los Angeles Police Department

Credit: Los Angeles Police Department

In the midst of what seems to be the end of the Christopher Dorner manhunt Tuesday evening, San Bernardino County authorities asked reporters to stop tweeting about the showdown between police and Dorner at a cabin outside of Big Bear. The sheriff’s office said the tweets were “hindering officer safety,” after an afternoon where one more police officer was killed and another seriously wounded while tracking down Dorner.

CBS stations complied with the sheriff’s request, alerting their followers they wouldn’t tweet any more updates. Meanwhile, the network’s television stations and sister stations continued to broadcast live feeds of the situation from helicopter view. They even alerted followers to turn on their TVs to watch instead of following the feeds.

Porn Hashtag Gets Popular on Twitter App Vine

(Screenshot: USA Today article / Michael Juliani)

The Twitter app Vine offered journalists (professional and citizen alike) a tool for sharing six-second video clips on their feeds. In early demos, Vine CEOs and eager journalists practiced by showing six seconds of the process of making steak tartare and throwing away their coffee cups. But overwhelmingly, users have taken to Vine to post porn on Twitter, according to USA Today.

Tags like #sex and #porn began appearing on the app, and The Verge reported that one porn clip somehow made it as one of Twitter’s Editor’s Picks. (The clip was removed, labeled as a “human error.”)

ALSO SEE: Apple has a porn problem, and it’s about to get worse

As we know, the tools becoming available for citizen journalism are only expanding. While it seems easy to discount Vine for its early rush of X-rated content, perhaps it’s better to say “So what?” After all, journalism will be journalism, and porn will be porn (except if it becomes an Editor’s Pick).

For its part, Twitter released this statement in response:

Users can report videos as inappropriate within the product if they believe the content to be sensitive or inappropriate (e.g. nudity, violence, or medical procedures). Videos that have been reported as inappropriate have a warning message that a viewer must click through before viewing the video.

Uploaded videos that are reported and determined to violate our guidelines will be removed from the site, and the user that posted the video may be terminated.