In March I wrote a blog post where I collected together all the links I’d recently shared on social media. I think a lot about how I use things like twitter – I want to make sure that I’m providing useful, or at least interesting information to people. I would like to think I’m making the world a tiny bit better not a tiny bit worse. I got some very good feedback about the last post and so I thought I’d continue on with the process…

So let’s begin.  Over the last few months I’ve been tweeting about:

General Disability:

• Wheelie Good Idea, which uses old and unwanted independent living aids and mobility equipment which we collect, refurbish and export to Africa.
• Information on Bereavement And Learning Disabilities.
• UK political parties being ranked on how they plan to treat disabled people.
• Forced Marriage of People with Learning Disabilities
• Dolphins’ Den – Support for people with a learning disability to set up their own businesses.
• There are some truly great tales of bravery here: “South Korea ferry: Messages from a sinking ship”
• I have something in my eye… “Thanks to Twitter campaign, teen gets bionic hand, hugs dad for the first time”.
• “Judge Orders Man To Hold ‘I Am A Bully’ Sign after harassing children with developmental disabilities”

Disability stories that made me angry (warning: rage-inducing)

• Mandel’s fake sign language interpreter is back: starring in an advert mocking sign language. FFS.
• Care workers abusing brain damaged patient while gloating
• Blind woman has to film her own abuse…
• “other passengers were allowed to the board the train, while guard refused to lower the ramp for wheelchair”
• “Charity Shop Letter Causes Outrage Online”

Funny…

• “Daily Mail Headlines Replaced With User Comments”
• Duchess of Cambridge Down Under: desperate search for photogenic disabled kids for her to hug continues…
• I must say I love this unfortunate favicon fail from the wired.co.uk website:

Internet and data-freedoms:

• “The Internet Is About to Become Worse Than Television”
• “French journalist ‘hacks’ govt by inputting correct URL, fined $4,000+” – I found this terrifying….
• Also terrifying: “Putin Requires Russian Bloggers to Register with the Government”
• The important difference between freedom of information and open government.
• Twitter being rubbish about Free Speech, particularly in Ukraine.
• “Porn site age-check law demanded by media regulator” (also known as ‘media regulator demonstrates complete misunderstanding of everything about the internet)

Misc:

• “More Americans willing to try cannibalism than veganism”
• UK democracy in general, best exemplified by this extract from BBC NEWS:

A controversial former Tory councillor who claimed to have slept with an Arsenal striker and alleged that Ted Heath was gay and went “cottaging” before becoming prime minister lost his seat on Barnet Council, winning just 265 votes.

Self-styled “King of Bling” Brian Coleman once served as chairman of the London Assembly and was a Conservative councillor in the borough before being suspended after assaulting a woman who filmed him breaking parking rules.

He had kept his seat as an independent after the incident.

So that’s my catalog of interesting things for the last couple of weeks.