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What Do We Do When the Internet Mob Is Wrong?

Posted by Soulskill on from the blame-it-on-everyone-else-and-walk-away-whistling dept.

New submitter cornicefire writes "By now most people have heard the news and seen the picture of the boy who was killed over the new Nike sneakers. There are Facebook pages devoted to fist-shaking protests about materialism and greed. Yada yada yada. But while the scuffles over the shoes were real, the death was not. The photo was just a stock photo of some kid in a lab. We know this because of some old school reporters — Steve Earley and Justin Fentin of the Baltimore Sun. In the rush to celebrate crowdsourcing, many of us pooh-pooh the old media as 'gatekeepers,' but there are times when keeping that gate locked is a good idea. After all, if one of the crowd discovered the error, the signal would barely rise above the noise. There are people claiming that anyone questioning the facts is being disrespectful. Is there something we can do about the mobocracy? How can we support the best traditions of journalism while fixing the worst? How can we nurture accuracy?"

17 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. Nurturing accuracy by colinrichardday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nurturing accuracy will require a cultural change, from our schools up.

    1. Re:Nurturing accuracy by CharlyFoxtrot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's true and not only of the "internet mob." Traditional media, with a few exceptions, have also gone this route of going with sensational hot news without fact checking and then burying corrections later. The only difference is that the masses read the internet (or at least the channels through which news reaches them such as Facebook) and that news spreads instantaneously instead of over a couple of days.

      --
      If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
    2. Re:Nurturing accuracy by colinrichardday · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think our current chaotic information pool will improve in quality as honest brokers of info bundling and verification services emerge and thus develop a reputation.

      Developing such a reputation only matters if people want accurate information.

    3. Re:Nurturing accuracy by Rockoon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Its not just sensational news.

      The modern media is He Said, She Said. Instead of investigative journalism and getting to the bottom of the story, all they do is tell you what people (such as politicians) are saying.

      Name the media outlet that managed to inform us that in 2000, when credit default swaps were being deregulated, that the House vote for deregulation went 292 to 60:

      133 to 51 on the Republican side.
      157 to 9 on the Democrat side.

      Instead of reporting that (simple to find facts), they cut to a sound-bites of either (a) Democrats blaming the Republicans or (b) Republicans defending themselves from the accusation.

      Stop listening to them. Start watching them. You can't watch with the television on, because thats just listening to what they are saying rather than watching what they are doing.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    4. Re:Nurturing accuracy by miserere+nobis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think our current chaotic information pool will improve in quality as honest brokers of info bundling and verification services emerge and thus develop a reputation.

      I have been hoping for this outcome, but there is a lot of reason to believe it is unlikely. One reason is that, when it comes to mass social media-developed stories, the brokers are everyone, and honest news sources can be overwhelmed and lost in the noise. To prevent this, every person has to regard him- or herself as a journalist with an obligation to check things before posting them, tweeting them, or otherwise passing them along. Given how well this has worked with all of the incredibly unbelievable urban legends that continue to be propagated via email despite easy fact checking, I have a feeling a lot more people find it easier to click "share" than to take time to look something up carefully.

      The other reason I worry about this is that reputations themselves hold value and therefore are regularly sold off just like any other assets. How many companies are there that have developed a reputation for high quality, over many years, and then someone realized that if they put the same brand name on a lesser product, they could sell more of it at lesser cost. Sure, it diminishes the brand, but that takes time, and the profits are immediate. Furthermore, our culture (at least in the U.S.) has gradually devalued actual honesty (the foundation of a reputation) in favor of branding (the imagery of a reputation). Most troubling, personal honesty itself is not considered important. What is a paid endorsement, really? It is putting up your reputation for sale. Yet this is accepted without question as the best way to cash in on one's status as a trusted person. To see this in action out in the masses, how many bloggers, after building up a following, begin accepting "sponsored posts"? Vast numbers of them, and many have probably never even realized there is a moral dimension to this at all, it's just a way to earn money. If they have thought about it, they probably have never taken it seriously enough to actually refuse to do it, because looking at it as a form of dishonesty would be a "fringe" view in our present culture, and therefore easily dismissed regardless of its accuracy. So what I worry about is that, unless we somehow foster an actual cultural change, we'll wind up with just a continued bombardment of unchecked "facts" mixed with an endless succession of people and institutions that build up a trusted reputation and then cash out.

    5. Re:Nurturing accuracy by vAltyR · · Score: 5, Informative

      Maintaining your beliefs whether or not they are correct is not integrity; it's simply stubbornness. Integrity includes being able to admit you were wrong before, which is seems to be looked down on in our society; consider how many politicians have been accused of "flip-flopping" on a controversial subject.

    6. Re:Nurturing accuracy by theCoder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But interestingly enough, when that happens, some of the highest rated comments are "no that's wrong and here's why..."

      Anytime I see an sensationalist /. article, I always check the comments to find out how accurate it is. But I suppose not everyone does that, and most Internet sites don't have as good a commenting system as /.

      --
      "Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
  2. Not much to be done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We had a similar event earlier this year near where I live. A kid, in that case, did die. Everyone thought the lad had over-dosed and died and the followed two weeks were a blur of cries for tougher drug control, better drug programs, editorials on how irresponsible youth are, etc etc etc. But a few of us, having read the report, noted the cause of death probably wasn't really drug related and the autopsy confirmed this. However no one wanted to hear it. Any comment about what really happened was shouted down in the anti-drug fervor.

    There isn't much you can do against a mob, even one which is obviously wrong. Just wait it out and quietly try to educate people one at a time I suppose.

  3. type of human who uses and believes social media by rubycodez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the people who immerse themselves in social media, who believe rumors without question, who only worry about other's opinions and so are easily swayed, are just dumber than sack of shit regardless of how high their IQ. Over half the populace is like that, very scary

  4. Public relations stunt? by jonbryce · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Looks very much like a PR stunt from Nike to me, to get out the message "our shoes are so good that people are fighting and killing each other to get them".

  5. Was Nike behind this? by Animats · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The real issue is whether Nike was behind the hype. Nike isn't that cool any more, and Michael Jordan is a has-been jock. They're the parties that would benefit from this. Follow the money.

  6. the answer is clear by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Funny

    Rustle up an internet mob to punish this despicable lack of accuracy!

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  7. Mob rule, groupthink by macraig · · Score: 5, Informative

    Welcome to sociopolitical science 101. This behavior is called tyranny of the majority, and it so worried Thomas Jefferson and others who founded the United States that they crafted a new variant of democracy intended to discourage it. At least in politics....

  8. Re:Reputation and meta-moderation by Richard_at_work · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just as with slashdot moderation, it will be possible to game the system, if you respond rationally everywhere except one issue where you feel strongly about. And it would be nice if your reputation could be classified so that you can have a good reputation on some subjects, but automatically junkpiled on other topics.

    The problem with that, which is also the main problem with slashdots moderation system, is that it largely depends on the group of people taking part in the moderation, and it completely depends on their opinions. You can be completely rational on topics, backed with facts, and still be modded to oblivion because other people simply don't like your view, it isn't what they want to hear.

    Many topics on slashdot suffer from such, including copyright issues, negative views on android etc.

    Just because you have a good or bad reputation with one group doesn't mean that reputation is automatically of value to anyone else.

  9. Not believing everything your read by perpenso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nurturing accuracy will require a cultural change, from our schools up.

    Perhaps it is more important to teach not believing everything that you read. Especially on the internet where there is little barrier to being published.

    To instill some sort of ability to judge credibility. For example, two people make conflicting medical claims. One is an unknown but licensed medical doctor who trained at a well regarded university and the other is a famous and popular actress. That the actress' lack of relative credibility would require extraordinary evidence of her claims.

    1. Re:Not believing everything your read by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Perhaps it is more important to teach not believing everything that you read.

      Critical thinking is the most important thing school can teach a person.
      Unfortunately it seems to get pretty short shrift in much of the curriculum.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  10. Why bother. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There isn't much you can do against a mob, even one which is obviously wrong. Just wait it out and quietly try to educate people one at a time I suppose.

    Doesn't work.

    I shut up. Let folks stay ignorant - they won't believe you otherwise. And use their ignorance to manipulate them.

    I'm not alone. Just look at what's happening in the Republican primaries. Here you have relatively well educated people spewing non-sense, lies and misinformation to pander to the ignorant masses. Does anyone really think Newt Gingrich is as stupid as he appears? Or Bachman? Cain? Perry (- Ok, maybe Perry is that stupid.)

    I don't.

    I see them as manipulating the public , using the public's own ignorance and contempt of facts and rational thinking and praying on their emotions.

    That's what it has come to: emotional indulgence and the inability or lack of desire to gather the facts and look at an issue rationally. Careful study and self-education is out of the question. People want to be told what to believe. They don't want ugly truth - truth that's always a shade of gray and never black and white - right or wrong - good or evil - or any other childish binary thought.

    Emotion and ego are like a drug. "I'm right - you're wrong and there's no two ways about it!" has become our society's mantra and it's leading us to a downfall. And some, Rupert Murdoch for one, have become quite rich and powerful taking advantage of this.