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The Internet and Technology's Role in Disasters and Tragedies
Dread Pirate Arbuthnot
OMG WRIGGLYT O X O P L A S M O S I SRegistered User regular
OMG WRIGGLYT O X O P L A S M O S I SRegistered User regular
When the Boston Marathon bombing happened, I was at work surfing the forums because I was bored. I saw the pictures of the explosion minutes after it happened, and I watched anxiously as news from everywhere poured in. Some of this news was from reporters on the ground, some of it was from Twitter reports, and some of it was made up of whole cloth. I had to unplug from the Internet for an hour so that I could calm down and clear my mind. When I logged back in, gore pictures were all over Reddit as well as all sorts of speculation.
I was in grade 6 when 9/11 happened, but I used our dial up Internet connection pretty regularly. I remember there was stuff like that photoshopped image of a guy standing on a 9/11 balcony with the incoming plane in the background, and I heard people at school gossiping about how if they dug deep enough they could find blurry videos of people jumping, but I don't really remember it being anywhere close to the Boston Marathon response. Which makes sense, as the technology wasn't the same; people weren't running around with smart phones and Twitter.
Parts of the Internet have taken up a duty to try and do their part in catching whoever was behind the Boston Marathon bombing. Reddit users were on the police lines doing minute by minute updates, actually providing one of the best sources of information immediately after the attack. Afterwards, 4chan users and Reddit users started analyzing photos. There's a subreddit where a few thousand people are looking at photos and circling potential suspects in red with the intent of sending this stuff off to the FBI. Major news outlets like the Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/13/04/hey-reddit-enough-boston-bombing-vigilantism/275062/) have started to chide them, only drawing more attention.
Obviously the Internet and technology hasn't really altered the way we react to tragedies, but it seems like its amplified and complicated things. Is this for the better, or is it an unfortunate side effect of progress? Should vigilantism be stomped out so there isn't a repeat of the Richard Jewell tragedy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell), or is this potentially helpful? Is being exposed to the immediate, messy aftermath of a tragedy a bad thing or a good thing?
I was in grade 6 when 9/11 happened, but I used our dial up Internet connection pretty regularly. I remember there was stuff like that photoshopped image of a guy standing on a 9/11 balcony with the incoming plane in the background, and I heard people at school gossiping about how if they dug deep enough they could find blurry videos of people jumping, but I don't really remember it being anywhere close to the Boston Marathon response. Which makes sense, as the technology wasn't the same; people weren't running around with smart phones and Twitter.
Parts of the Internet have taken up a duty to try and do their part in catching whoever was behind the Boston Marathon bombing. Reddit users were on the police lines doing minute by minute updates, actually providing one of the best sources of information immediately after the attack. Afterwards, 4chan users and Reddit users started analyzing photos. There's a subreddit where a few thousand people are looking at photos and circling potential suspects in red with the intent of sending this stuff off to the FBI. Major news outlets like the Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/13/04/hey-reddit-enough-boston-bombing-vigilantism/275062/) have started to chide them, only drawing more attention.
Obviously the Internet and technology hasn't really altered the way we react to tragedies, but it seems like its amplified and complicated things. Is this for the better, or is it an unfortunate side effect of progress? Should vigilantism be stomped out so there isn't a repeat of the Richard Jewell tragedy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell), or is this potentially helpful? Is being exposed to the immediate, messy aftermath of a tragedy a bad thing or a good thing?
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We all know that authorities regularly withhold details when something like this happens for a variety of reasons. A person without access to the details of the investigation simply doesn't have the information necessary to make determinations or gain insight beyond what is trivially apparent. They could, for example, name an already cleared victim or bystander as the bomber due to baseless speculation.
This is over and above the Richard Jewell issue - it's part of the problem, but it also will take manpower to respond to the additional useless tips that information will generate.
The best thing citizens who are not part of the investigation can do is follow the instructions of authorities. If they are told to keep calm, keep calm. If they are told to evacuate or stay put, evacuate or stay put. If authorities ask for pictures or tips, submit pictures or tips.
Even if the individuals do happen to identify the right suspect, there is no benefit to widely releasing that information vs. submitting it to authorities. Authorities have the ability to almost immediately release that information IF THEY WISH. However, publication of information that authorities don't want released can limit the actions available to authorities, tip off suspects / force action before authorities are prepared, or otherwise impede the investigation.
These days for any unfolding story like this, unless they provide conclusive proof, I am skeptical of whoever makes the first report because there's so much room for error. People reporting their suspicions to Law Enforcement is fine. People drawing conclusions and taking action beyond that is dangerous.
As for the internet vigilantism, I think there is a large gray area before the line is crossed. But everyone knows when the line is crossed, just not where it is for each event. I don't think the authorities want to stamp out the vigilantism completely because a disinterested and/or scared population will greatly hinder an investigation. If no one is willing to help, the investigators would have a hard time churning up anything other than the physical evidence.
People are going to do what they think is helpful, but in my estimation it should come short of accusations, allowing a central investigatory authority to do that final step.
As it stands, and I don't know how you control for this anyway, we are going to end up with Richard Jewell-type situations. Had the "guy on the roof" been identifiable, that would have already happened once so far.
So I don't know the right answer, but I know vigilantism is pretty much never it.
It made it real in a way neutred news footage does not.
It's my opinion that regardless of what they find it will be ignored. You need verifiable, tested, proof in order to convict someone. Photos of events prove nothing: but a chemical analysis, DNA, evidence that leads to tracking more evidence and eventually the suspect, you know an actual FBI/Police investigation process where they do chain of custody and stuff like that, that's what sends people to jail. That's how justice is served. Unless there is a photo of a dude(or dudes) actually placing the bombs, like it shows them in the act, then whatever conclusions 4chan or Reddit send to the FBI is meaningless. It's just a series of photos that show suspicious looking people with backpacks around the event.
Not by a bunch of geese on the internet claiming they think they found the suspect because 3 photos show the same guy, and man doesn't he look suspicious because who holds a backpack that way? This is why that Saudi student kid was beat up: someone thought he was suspicious because he was running away and he's not white and he's middle eastern so obviously he must be up to something, so let's tackle him, let's search his residence, because why was he running?!
"Duty"? The single duty of the internet is to be unfettered and unrestricted. Like I said, they all want to be Batman, they all want that validation and recognition without actually having to serve as an FBI crime scene investigator or in the police force, because f that, that takes work.
Right, and part of what worries me is that the communities that are doing their 'detective work' are spreading these photos around the entire Internet, where they are picked up by people who aren't interested in forwarding this shit to the FBI. Like so far their biggest 'suspect', as far as I can tell, is a guy who was holding a black backpack with grey stripes on his arm. I have a backpack exactly like that in my closet, it's a super common style. And people hold backpacks on their arms all the time, maybe he was holding it for someone as they ran to the can, or he just had an aching shoulder, or whatever. Another piece of 'damning proof' is that he wasn't looking directly at the runners. But maybe he just had a long day, or saw a bird, or something shiny, or thought he recognized a friend. Now this dude's face is all over the Internet, and even if the people doing this amateur analysis don't plan on doing anything but forward it to the FBI, what's stopping this from getting forwarded around until it hits someone who wants to be a vigilante?
A good example is the SE++ thread on the Boston Marathon, which specifically forbade politics, speculation, rumor-mongering, tabloid journalism, and even "look at this fucking guy" type discussion about shitty people trying to capitalize on this tragedy as quickly as possible, like conspiracy nuts. There's nothing you can do to prevent the fact that the info is out there, people are saying and doing the things they're gonna do in their own corners of the internet, but in the parts you frequent, in the ways you interact with it, I think the only thing you can do is exercise your own degree of control.
Your own example of unplugging the internet and just walking away for a bit is a good way to deal with it too. This culture of engrossment, of thrusting headlong into an event with no care for the accuracy, truth, or relevancy of the data you are taking in, is really harmful to people on the individual and societal level. People will clamor for something to do, some way to help or to make it right, because our brains just aren't wired to deal with feeling this impotently helpless in the face of that much suffering. All but the most selfish and misanthropic among us want to do something in the face of human misery, and we strive to do it hardest when that human misery is on all our news feeds, all of our TV channels, in all of our discussion forums, etc.
We don't live in an age of involuntary information anymore. Not those of us reading this forum, anyhow. We know the things we choose to know. We read the news we choose to read, filter our understanding of things through the channels and blogs and vlogs and other shit we choose to take in. It's how nowadays some people can completely ensconce themselves inside a smug politically slanted news-sphere, whether that's the Cult of Rachel Maddow or the Bill O'Reilly Congregation, people are more than capable of essentially observing their intake of reality beyond them in whatever way suits their personal narrative.
In that kind of environment, I think it behooves people to try to broaden their horizons, step outside their comfort zones, and try to view remote stories from as many angles as possible. But, at the same time, that also means exercising some critical thinking and judgment of the value of each angle, and whether that's worth your time. I am not interested, for example, in knowing what famous conspiracy nutcase Alex Jones had to say about the Boston Marathon. I don't want to pay that shitfucker any attention at all. But other people in my life do pay him attention, at least insofar as to get all Get-A-Load Of This Guy Cam, linking to his twitter comments and calling for a two-minute hate on this fuckface.
I don't need that. You don't need that. Nobody needs to link to shitty tumblrs or crazy blogs or whatever. Nobody is bettered by uniting in clucking their tongues at whatever fucked up thing Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps or has to say. You choose to have those people in your lives, for the most part, so opt not to when you have the choice and don't inflict them on others.
For a more personal example, I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday about some people being complete shitbags on his Facebook feed. They were being a specific kind of snide and shitty, due to their involvement in the internet social justice scene. They were chiding people's outpourings of emotion, despair, and horror at the Boston marathon attack because the day previous, an earthquake in Pakistan killed over thirty people and they saw very little response on the internet or the newsmedia to it. They were doing the typical thing such folk do, which is to put human tragedy on a numerical scale and give "privileged" people shit for being more shocked and horrified by a terrorist attack on the US versus a natural disaster in Pakistan, because the latter had a greater loss of life than the former. As if that was how the world, or humanity, actually worked.
I told my friend they need to drop people like that from their Facebook, from their twitter, from their life if they don't shut up about it. Nobody benefits from having "friends" like that. Not you, not them. You need to push people away when they get like that, because after a point dialogue with them becomes as meaningful as trying to yell at a WBC member holding up a protest sign at a soldier's funeral.
People need to exercise their own information control, because the world sure as fuck ain't going to do it for you.
Related to that, I think reddit's vigilantism is a bad thing, because all internet vigilantism (and all vigilantism in general) is a bad thing, in my opinion. I don't believe that the apparatus of US federal law enforcement and intelligence is so deficient that they are reliant on a bunch of dudes on reddit making red circles in photoshop in order to catch who is responsible. That isn't eyewitness reporting. That's vigilantism. Let conventional law enforcement do their jobs. Osama Bin Laden wasn't caught by "le reddit army", he was taken down by pretty conventional US intelligence operations. Nobody needs vigilantes. This isn't the fuckin' Marvel universe, this is real life.
Sometimes people need a lot less internet in their lives.
Just wanted to clarify that I did not mean that I believe internet users have a duty to do anything, but that the people who are working on this vigilante reporting are adopting a task they feel is necessary. I don't agree with that, but I could have phrased it better.
(i'm just being contrarian, i agree with everything you said :P )
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If they did good, it's the blind squirrel / broken clock principles. They aren't good guys, they aren't some 'robin hood' out for justice. I hate anyone who glamorizes them. They are a bunch of narcissistic shits who don't care about anyone but themselves. I'd almost bet money that if you spent a few minutes on it, you would find more publicized cases where the asses on 4chan have hounded someone to suicide than situations where you could even begin to say they did any 'good'.
Because I'd take that in the complete opposite direction: Never before has it been this easy to acquire information about events fast, reliably and first hand accounts. This isn't saying that separating the idiocy from the real is easy, but its a whole lot easier than in Ye Olde Times when the world was quite obviously flat, and if you sailed over the age you fell down see, all the sailors say so.
I think we have more power than we've ever had before to actually do something, and to then focus on how the power we don't have... Meh.
You're missing the point. Of course we have more power than ever before to get the facts about things... we also have just as much power, if we so choose, to create a narrative that suits our own biases, preconceived notions, or the preferences of the people who are feeding us the facts.
Being aware of that reality and opting to have a broader scope is a choice, but choosing that broader scope doesn't de facto involve hitting as many news sites and twitter feeds as you can. Never confuse depth for span.
Can you elaborate? I think the vagueness of what you're saying points towards a kind of faith based approach to the technological/societal aspects Pony is criticizing, while he is taking a sceptical approach - one that I can appreciate.
If you ever get a chance, thumb through some Life Magazines from WW2. The U.S. news media used to frequently cover the carnage of war without any censorship. It was considered proper journalism to show the people at home the reality of what their sons and fathers were experiencing.
The squeamishness over violence dates back to the Vietnam War. The U.S. government pressured the media to stop showing graphic images, because it was eroding support for the war. Since then, the media has followed that line.
Has our power to create narratives increased?
The ability to create - or have foisted upon us - a narrative that suits us - or someone else - has always been there. I'm unconvinced that technology has made it worse, that the ability to watch real-time footage of an event within minutes of it happening has made us more prone to accept falsehoods.
We've always been great at lying to ourselves and eachother.
I think so, yes, because we live in an age where it's far, far easier to find "evidence" online of whatever narrative you personally choose to subscribe to. If I'm a 9/11 truther, for example, I don't have to just "take it on faith" from one guy I heard ranting in the town square one time. I don't have to rely on a pamphlet I picked up from a guy handing them out in the park. I can find copious amounts of websites, blogs, forums, etc. of people who agree with me and have "done the research".
I don't have to substantiate this "research" or these "facts" to people outside my circle of believers, I can just insist it exists.
For example:
"Just study it out, just study it out, you'll see."
She doesn't have to explain herself to anyone outside her circle, she can just say the facts are out there and that you can access it, she can insist (as social justice activists are fond of) that it's not her job to educate you.
What the internet has done has let people like this collect together and reinforce each other's narratives, in a way that would've been much, much harder on the same scope and scale as before. There are entire subcultures and worldviews out there right now that existed before the internet and would exist without it, but not even close to the sort of mass and span that they do because the internet lets them openly talk to each other about it and reinforce it as true internally.
How does this apply to disasters and tragedies? Well, all it takes is for Fox News to say the police have a Saudi man in custody for those who want that to be true to leap all over it and reinforce it within themselves.
A lack of honest and self-aware critical thinking in parts of human civilization is hardly new, the internet has just given it a lot of room to foster and grow.
Anywho, while I appreciate the desire that the average internet-American feels in helping to right what has happened they - as has been stated up thread - lack the resources and more often than not skill in determining what is and isn't actionable. As such you get - based on their detective work - brown skinned 17 year olds frantically running to the police to clear there name before something bad happens.
Is Pony objectifying technology in the way you seem to be suggesting? I don't know, it appears to me that he's saying that with advances in media technology it is helpful to be cautious in how we indulge. The matter of whether technology as a thing is responsible, or humans in their use of it, doesn't seem all that relevant. People have been killing each other forever, and advances in weapon technology make it easier on many levels, from how quickly one is disposed of, to how many are. Sometimes this is done in ways we find abhorrent, but weapons also make it easier to defend ourselves. There are positive and negative aspects to this technology, Pony seems to be saying that even with the beneficial aspects taken into account, it helps to look at the technology with a sceptical and/or cautious eye. I'm not really sure I see a problem with that?
Regarding your last sentence, could it be possible that the technology we're discussing makes it easier to lie to ourselves and each other? If so, is it a problem to be cautious regarding this aspect?