Film star and Twitter celebrity Ashton Kutcher encouraged Russians last week to share ideas through social media Web sites during a visit by US technology leaders to Moscow.
Kutcher, with more than 4.5 million followers on microblogging site Twitter, is the star of the number one film at the US box office last weekend, Valentine’s Day.
“More importantly than anything I write, it’s really about what you write on your blogs,” Kutcher said at a press briefing.
“That is the power of the social Web, which is to say you don’t have to be a celebrity or sit on a podium to have a community that you can build, run an idea, a thought, a piece of leadership,” he said.
Kutcher was joined by US State Department officials and executives from US technology firms including electronic auction company eBay and hardware manufacturer Cisco Systems. eBay this week said it is entering the Russian market.
The delegation is meeting Kremlin officials, universities and private businesses to see how Russia and the US can work together on technology issues, one of the projects set up by the two countries as they seek to improve relations.
Twitter has been cited as an information source in Iran and Moldova, where anti-government protesters bypassed censored official media organizations to publish details on events.
But Twitter’s founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, was skeptical about the direct role of technology to promote democratic movements.
“I think the technology will always be a neutral body. I think the important question is how is Russia going to adapt the technology, how is Russia going to use it, not just as a country but as individuals and that has yet to be defined,” Dorsey said.
By spring 2009 there were 7.4 million Russian-speaking blogs, including half a million online community groups, almost doubling in a year, according to Russian search engine Yandex.
With Russia’s main television channels closely aligned with the Kremlin and stifling dissent, the Internet has become a lively focus for opposition debate but Moscow-based social media expert Nick Wilsdon of E3internet.com said sites like Twitter can be used by authorities and not just protest movements.
“Twitter would probably be a better example of democracy in action if more people followed their elected representatives than their favorite film star,” Wilsdon said in an e-mail.
In other Twitter-related news, “dead” singer Gordon Lightfoot says he feels fine.
The legendary 71-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter is very much alive despite reports last week that said he had died while on a North American tour.
Lightfoot, whose hits include The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Sundown, and Carefree Highway, was said to have been pronounced dead by a prank message posted on Twitter, according to the Web site of the Globe and Mail newspaper. Reports of his death spread quickly on radio, television, and news Web sites.
Lightfoot, noted for richly crafted lyrics and a deep, smooth voice, was reached by telephone by Toronto’s CP24 news station and said he was informed of his death by a report he heard on his car radio as he drove to his office.
“Everything is good,” he told CP24. “I don’t know where it come from, it seems like a bit of a hoax. I was quite surprised to hear it myself ... I feel fine.”
Finally, former Family Ties actor Brian Bonsall has been arrested again in Colorado, this time on a charge of using marijuana in violation of the terms of his release.
Deputies handcuffed and led the 28-year-old from a Boulder courtroom on Friday after he pleaded not guilty to an assault charge and a failure to report charge involving another case. Bail was set at US$10,000.
Bonsall’s defense attorney says the actor needs marijuana for headaches and has applied for a medical marijuana card through the state.
He is accused of repeatedly hitting a friend in the head with a broken wooden stool in December and of missing a court hearing in 2007 in another assault case.
Bonsall played the role of the youngest Keaton sibling, Andy, on the 1980s NBC TV comedy sitcom starring Michael J. Fox.
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