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Did Tech Websites Exploit the Boston Marathon Bombing?
Nerval's Lobster writes "These days, when something in the world goes very wrong, it seems as if everybody learns about it first on Twitter and Facebook. In the minutes after homemade bombs turned the finish line of the Boston Marathon into a crime scene, terms such as #BostonMarathon shot to the top of Twitter's Trends list; across the country, office workers first learned of the attack when someone posted a message on a Facebook page. Social networks have become this generation's radio, the default conduit for the freshest information. As first responders treated the wounded and the minutes ticked past, news organizations began vacuuming up Twitter and Facebook posts from around Boston and posting it on their Websites, along with 'regular' text updates. A Vine video-snippet of a bomb going off near the finish line, knocking a runner off his feet, ended up embedded into dozens of blog postings. When a disaster strikes, and many of those same news Websites post 'live updates' that incorporate tons of social-networking posts, they face accusations of exploiting the tragedy in the name of pageviews and revenue. That's not surprising—long before 'yellow journalism' became a term, people have charged news organizations with playing up humanity's worst for their own gain. In the immediate aftermath of the Boston bombings, online pundits lashed out against Mashable, The Verge, Wired, and other publications that had posted live updates, accusing them of stepping outside their usual coverage areas for cynical gain. In the following piece, a number of tech editors-in-chief, including The Verge's Joshua Topolsky and Mashable's Lance Ulanoff, talk about their approaches to covering the tragedy."
"Some Websites that posted “live updates” faced accusations of exploiting the tragedy in the name of pageviews and revenue." ??
Each time a disaster happens, we're FLOODED with the same info, repeated over and over... on TV and Internet...
So can I ask something : What's the difference between a website and a channel, such as Fox/CBC/CNN/etc !?
Why only the "Websites" and not every damn TV channel that broadcast the same ****ing news all day long?
ty.
No wonder there was so much misinformation. First there was 1 dud bomb that didn't go off, then there were 5. Then there were none.
This is all social media's doing.
I find it ironic that I found out about the bombs on slashdot first.
... most news agencies are for-profit entertainment businesses, rather than public service organizations.
Profit is good. What's wrong with what they (purportedly) did? We need to foster innovation in news. If no one pursued profit, what revolutionary developments in soundbite and factoid technology will go missed?
Here you have a tech website in its natural habitat, being a gigantic hypocrite
The idea that tech blogs can cover stories about tech, but should leave coverage of serious political and human issues to the "big boys" of traditional media, is ridiculous. There is no special license needed to write about serious and important topics, only the usual requirement that the reporting be genuinely in the public interest. Presenting information from social networks, as long as it is labelled as such and not misrepresented as certain fact, is in no way improper. If people are interested in reading about that information, there is nothing wrong with providing it, and if tech blogs feel that because of their focus, they are especially able to do this, then they should.
Is the mainstream media not "exploiting" the event as well?
So this is about people complaining about news organizations stepping outside their targeted topics.
How is this news for nerds?
Now stop asking stupid questions and let's try to answer the real questions like, "How to stop this horseshit."
Got it?
The question isn't so hard.
Get a grip.The answer sucks, though. AND i CAN'T STOMACH IT.
But quite sure slashdot doing it.
I'm a marathon runner, and the first I heard about this was from friends inquiring if I knew anybody there. I can't conceive of what earthly good this information would have done them (perhaps they wanted to offer me some sort of comfort if I had) but I do know that whatever it is, people are fascinated by the tragedies and want to know everything they can the soonest they can.
So I can hardly blame news companies for giving people the fastest information that they can. They're not so much "exploiting" the tragedy as giving people what it is they're craving (or at least, the closest substitute they can get to it, the unverified raw data stream). I don't think it's doing them any good (that's a different rant) but they're not forcing this on people. They're doing what people ask them to do.
In what way did news coverage make things worse? If a huge crowd of cameramen were to obstruct the way of emergency vehicles I would understand the uproar, but absent that I fail to see what damage could journalism possibly cause.
And revoke their "Press" privileges : the access passes,etc if they exceed a specified number (and maybe grade) of "inaccuracy events"
Their job is to present facts and not opinions, so this should be relatively easy to implement
The Chicago Tribune reports
Current and former counter-terrorism officials said that the Boston bombs were built using pressure cookers as the superstructure, black powder or gunpowder as the explosive and ball bearings as additional shrapnel. The officials said that instructions on how to design such bombs are available on the Internet.
http://slashdot.org/submission/2606257/boston-marathon-bombings-likely-used-pressure-cooker-plans-found-on-the-internet
It's no fault of social media that they are more timely and have more information than local / national news organizations. People want to get the info so they turn to whatever source they can. I don't see it as some crass opportunism to increase page count. It's simply social media sites deliver what the people want more quickly than anybody else.
across the country, office workers first learned of the attack when someone posted a message on a Facebook page.
I have no idea if this is true or not, but unfortunately I believe it.
People waste so much paid work time on Facebook. Why don't they put it to productive use, and post on Slashdot instead?
#DeleteChrome
People made calls and sent texts immediately. This affects their monthly bill. Based on this TFS's reasoning, should we not see AT&T and Sprint as exploiting the tragedy as well?
It doesn't particularly matter if they were trying to exploit it or not since they just can't do non-tech major breaking news reporting as good as the big boys.
Take The Verge, for example, who seem to not grasp the simple concept that if you're going to try and live blog, you write from the bottom up to allow for rapid F5'ing. Mashable's content is no better than one going to Twitter and typing "Boston" in the search box.
If you want to exploit something, you need to give them reason to stick around while you fleece them for ad dollars... I clicked off the tech sites and went to CNN and the Wall Street Journal (the latter, to me, had superior coverage).
...is this time a what-if.
http://what-if.xkcd.com/40/
"What's the worst thing that can happen if you misuse a pressure cooker" someone asked shortly ago. What are the odds of that!
(hint: news say they found the bombs were built inside pressure cookers)
As first responders treated the wounded and the minutes ticked past, news organizations began vacuuming up Twitter and Facebook posts from around Boston and posting it on their Websites, along with 'regular' text updates. A Vine video-snippet of a bomb going off near the finish line, knocking a runner off his feet, ended up embedded into dozens of blog postings. When a disaster strikes, and many of those same news Websites post 'live updates' that incorporate tons of social-networking posts, they face accusations of exploiting the tragedy in the name of pageviews and revenue.
So, wait, are talking about "tech websites" or "traditional journalists" here? Because when I first heard about the explosions (from Twitter, naturally), I went to boston.com - which was in some kind of "low bandwidth" mode where they front page was only showing tweets related to the explosions.
"Traditional" media throughout the aftermath referenced tweets. NPR referenced the Boston Police Department's Twitter feed for updates. Local TV stations turned to Twitter, Vine, and YouTube to find videos of the explosion.
I guess only tech websites aren't "allowed" to mine Twitter? Because from what I could tell, everyone was doing that, from print to radio to TV to the web.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
is going to change anything. Let's get over it and realise that some people and organisations are simply abhorrent. Also, enough about Boston; lets move on to some other news, shall we?
legitimized with an editorial?
Traditional news sites repost content from social networks and blog sites, and then traditional media blames social networks and blog sites for exploiting tragedy and the errors they themselves repeated.
Who fucking cares what they think. You should be attacking them directly, not defending yourselves with equivocation about page views and advertising. Newspapers and TV news have ads too, and their websites are even more obnoxious with them.
Just like Slashdot is by posting a non story for clicks.
I didn't want to be scolded in twitter for being heartless, so I haven't expressed my concerns: will someone take this issue up as a reactionary justification for stricter internet regulation (CISPA) a la PATRIOT act? We all know the pudding inside politicians heads is only capable of reaction, be it to money or tragedy. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but the nuttier of the gun nuts say the recent shootings are a conspiracy-- screw it, I'll say it: YOU'LL HAVE TO PRY THE INTERNET FROM MY COLD DEAD CARPAL TUNNEL SUFFERING HANDS. /crazy
Social media could help crowdsource identification of all the images that are coming into the FBI tip line. There's probably thousands of images, with some images having thousands of people.
Social media sites could help identify every single one of those people to help the police follow up and interview them to see if they saw anything suspicious?
Welcome
To
Capitalism.
Not going to speculate as to whether what has happened is or is not morally correct, but that's precisely how for-profit business works in a capitalist society - whatever gets the dollars coming in is posted, regardless of how tasteless or unoriginal the content may be.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If people would simply put, "it is reported" in tweets instead of "it is confirmed" (when it is not), we could really cut down on a lot of misinformation.
If The Verge, Slashdot, Wired or, heck, Gizmag want to write about the explosion - it is their 1st Amendment right to do so. Same goes for the National Enquirer, STAR, or any of the other tabloid journals. This isn't any different than WSJ, NYT, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Al Jazeera, etc. can write about tech items, happiness, tragedy, cat getting stuck in a tree or anything else considered newsworthy.
Each outlet will be judged by how well they do their job, and will receive an appropriate reputation.
Since our news organizations are a combination of subscriber and advertiser revenue based, they have to write according to their generating said revenue.
We can either just deal with the situation as it stands or have state-run news organizations. I really don't think anyone would be comfortable with the latter as even approaching truthfulness or integrity in the long term.
If the 'Big Boys' don't like the upstarts encroaching on their turf - all I can say is.. too bad.
It is also quite incorrect. It claims that a consumer-grade cooker won't go above 2 atm. That's patently absurd. If you block the exit and the safety valve fails, the pressure can easily reach a level that the metal will burst.
But that's if the safety valve fails. Well, the best course of action in any operation is to never assume that the safety valve will work properly and to never push the envelope where it has to work to keep you alive.
Even if the safety valve functions, the hole it opens is limited in size. If the amount of heat being applied creates the pressure more rapidly than it can be released by the safety valve, you still get enough pressure to rupture the vessel. Using black powder as the pressure generation source would most likely create enough pressure fast enough, and if one of those ball bearing happened to block the safety valve hole, you suddenly have no safety valve.
Along with assuming the safety valve functions properly, there is the assumption that the pressure vessel has not been compromised. Stress fractures or damage to the vessel can create a weakness that can rupture.
And that, dear reader, means that the worst that can happen in a normal kitchen is that it can, indeed, explode and kill you.
Did tech websites glom onto the tragedy too much?
Yes.
Now stop talking about it, my cousin Allison is in surgery for her knee for the second day, and I want you to talk about something else.
Like dinosaur quizzes, or how you may be able to treat atherosclerosis with a common drug.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I mean, seriously, here was the New York Post headline over the recent Tiger Woods incident: "Tiger Puts Balls in Wrong Place Again."
Nerval's Lobster has a correction for the original post.
"I must apologize for calling any of these outlets "news organizations" , I was incorrect. Now back to regularly scheduled programming. "
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Didn't Slashdot do the exact same thing yesterday?
On the other hand, not saying anything seems callous, so you're damned no matter what you do.
Proverbs 21:19
That xkcd does not include instructions on how to make such a bomb. It doesn't mention black powder at all, or ball bearings.
It is also quite incorrect. It claims that a consumer-grade cooker won't go above 2 atm. That's patently absurd. If you block the exit and the safety valve fails, the pressure can easily reach a level that the metal will burst.
I think most modern pressure cookers are designed so the gasket between the lid and the pot will give way and leak pressure before the metal pot explodes so you'd have to have a failure of the pressure valve, the pressure release safety valve *and* the gasket. Older pressure cookers often didn't have that that gasket level of safety, so a failure of the pressure valve and safety *could* result in explosion.
But that's if the safety valve fails. Well, the best course of action in any operation is to never assume that the safety valve will work properly and to never push the envelope where it has to work to keep you alive.
Isn't that pretty much the normal use-case for the pressure cooker. The normal pressure valve is typically small and relatively easily clogged, so everytime you use it, you're counting on the safety release valve being there just in case the primary pressure release becomes clogged. If there wasn't that extra safety valve, people would be afraid to cook anything but plain water to prevent clogging the pressure valve.
Even if the safety valve functions, the hole it opens is limited in size. If the amount of heat being applied creates the pressure more rapidly than it can be released by the safety valve, you still get enough pressure to rupture the vessel. Using black powder as the pressure generation source would most likely create enough pressure fast enough, and if one of those ball bearing happened to block the safety valve hole, you suddenly have no safety valve.
Safety valve or no, a big enough explosive is going to rupture the device, but that's well outside of the normal operating conditions of a pressure cooker - a household stove can only put so much energy into the pressure cooker and a 1cm hole can let out an awful lot of steam.
Along with assuming the safety valve functions properly, there is the assumption that the pressure vessel has not been compromised. Stress fractures or damage to the vessel can create a weakness that can rupture.
And that, dear reader, means that the worst that can happen in a normal kitchen is that it can, indeed, explode and kill you.
Yeah, that's the worst case, but you're probably more likely to die from your stove leaking natural gas into your house than having a modern pressure cooker explode.
Apropos of nothing, note that the day before the Marathon bombings:
1) The DOW dropped 250 points (1.7%).
3) Gold (GLD) dropped $20 or so, (roughly 15%).
An explanation for this could be: some large players in the financial arena knew of the bombings ahead of time, and sold stock/gold in anticipation of the market response to another 9/11-style incident.
I'm not suggesting that this is what happened, it might be a coincidence. I'm hoping some of the investigation will show that this is indeed a coincidence (or not)*. This is a good fit for the definition of "suspicious".
*I'm aware that the news media (and financial pundits in general) post explanations for market behaviour every day. Gold dropped because Cyprus is being forced to sell of its gold, and the Dow dropped because of worse-than-expected China growth. I'm suspicious that the Cyprus situation was unknown and suddenly revealed last Friday, and I'm especially suspicious of reports that explain past activity which cannot predict future activity - even conditionally.
Sorry, Betteridge, but I have to agree with this headline. When I first learned of the bombing, I attempted to get to footage of the live feed. When I clicked on the link, I was treated to an upbeat commercial with two guys joking around and playing guitar in an attempt to sell Geico insurance. I thought there must be some mistake because no one in their right mind would force a viewer to watch commercials before getting news about a tragedy, but sure enough the live feed proceeded after the commercial. Humanity has commercialized tragedy much sooner than I expected.
No tech "journalists" did not. The media did.
One thing wrong about this is taking people on Twitter's word for it. Twitter and other social networks are the web equivalent of everyone shouting OMG ponies except it's not ponies.....
Gorkman
Add Slashdot to the list of websites posting content outside their area of expertise.
Uh I am just reading that article now, and it COULD be the proxy/firewall here at work but - the article doesn't seem to be linking to XKCD.
The way it reads now (Maybe the Tribune edited the article?) reads:
"The sources, who asked not to be identified, said instructions on how to design such bombs are available on the internet."
I am not surprised at all. They could have acted like free press and been fighting for our constitution and bill of rights. But instead, PROFIT$
Not provide as much coverage out of a sense of good taste?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Surprised Gawker wasn't mention in the list what with their almost immediate take on blaming "right-wing" groups for the bombing. Disgusting. There comment section is full of some of the most vile people on the internet.
I appreciate the effort, but for all the well-chosen words in your post, it's nothing more than a restatement of your initial position.
I see no reference to experience or external authority, no allusions to history or similar situations, and no compelling logical flow from a premise to a conclusion. It fairly reeks of sophistry, using such vague terms as "large number of players", "overwhelming majority", and "number rapidly increases".
For contrast, a credible argument could have compared the amount of Cyprus gold with the world total amount, or cited previous (ie - historical) stock market drops with similar causes and drawn an analogy with the present situation. Facts and reference combine to make a powerful argument.
In short, you've added nothing to your premise, which is essentially attacking the person while hand-waving and storytelling.
I knew what your position was, the challenge was to defend it.
A troll would not have done more than you did. This was rather easy. When you attacked the person instead of the argument, it became shooting fish in a barrel.
Can we dispense with the term "homemade"? This is a bogus term on many levels. A) It implies that there are store-bought (or restaurant-quality) devices available. It's about as useful as calling some fancy devices 'gourmet' bombs. B) It also implies a connection to so-called 'homegrown' terrorists in the same way that the Benghazi attack was due to (and justified by) a video (which it wasn't but what difference does that make). Call them what they are: an improvised explosive device (IED). That is an accurate term because these were not made in a factory and it does not attempt to assign blame.
9/11, sandy hoax, and everything in between
I first heard of this bombing on ESPN at the restaurant I was eating lunch at. The Boston marathon is a legitimate sports event, but they continued covering and discussing the bombing well past the point of it being a sports story. Was ESPN exploiting the tragedy?
Don't they know that exploiting tragedy for profit is the job of the mainstream media?
(as is handwringing over doing just that)
Seriously, if you're in the news business, whether a blogger or a regular media member, exploiting tragedies is part and parcel of your business. "If it bleeds, it leads", right?
Lol you said modern cooker & natural gas in the same sentence LMAO
in my country all major news media relies on ad-generated revenue. they exploit everything from human interest stories to the weather.
I don't use facefuck or twitthead and got timely accurate news. Probably more so than the people that rely on the rumor social mills.
Your mother should have swallowed.
Thank you. An island of expertise in a roiling sea of opinion.
You're correlation hunting.
I sometimes wonder about the general reaction to "correlation hunting". I'm not in any way defending the position, only asking whether it's a coincidence. Is calling something a "conspiracy theory" the new way to shut down a conversation?
I always thought good science starts with the phrase "that's odd...", but maybe it doesn't apply in some circumstances.
Anyway, thank you for the reassuring perspective.
I have seen you posting these little factoids right after the top post all day.
Let me be the first to say if this is the kind of trolling we are gonna get on /. then I, for one, welcome our fact bearing troll overlords!
Sure beats APK BS
A tech site may have someone familiar with IEDs.
I've been out of touch the last few days working on a project.
* no TV
* no social networking - actually, I don't do those things
* no radio
I have emailed lots, posted on forums lots, and visited my normal websites, but this is the first I've heard about anything special happening in Boston.
Last time anything happened in Boston, Kennedy died.
Did something really important happen?
Ah ... did a search and got my answer. Minor incident. Hardly worth all the attention. Something like that would barely make the news in other countries.
500+ people were still killed in accidents on roads in the USA yesterday - no coverage on that story.
- Social media tools are one of the most heavily covered tech areas. Tech reporters spend time learning about these tools and how they are applied. Tech sites typically lead mainstream media sites in applying these tools. These tools are tested to the max during major news events.
- I can't say where most tech publications writing about the Boston Marathon focused in on tech issues, but many did. They wrote about the cell network overloads, and on topics such as the need for investigators to stitch together composites of video and still photos and the technology that might make that possible. These are things that mainstream media get to as second-day stories. For tech, they are first day stories.
- To imagine that tech reporters are sitting around a newsroom and wondering how they can "play up humanity's worst for their own gain" is garbage. What they are trying to do is contribute in some way. Or maybe it would make more sense in the middle of disaster to write about the latest flat screen or clock rate and just ignore the whole lest be accused of exploiting it somehow.
You can say this about any for profit industry that benefits from disaster - media outlets, mobile phone service providers, funeral homes, medical institutions and doctors, nurses, paramedics. Life is life, and we have businesses based around reacting to disasters, pain, and suffering. I don't think anyone in those industries leaps for joy when it happens though. To pick on the tech industry specifically is kind of weak. They're pretty far down the line in terms of the beneficiaries of the death economy.
My personal experience was the major news organizations exploited this more than Twitter or Facebook. Twitter and Facebook allowed people on the ground to share their experiences where as the news organizations were sitting around talking about the emotional tragedy of an 8 year old boy getting blown up. What i mean to say is that the major news organizations were spinning the story to have the most emotional impact and thus gain the largest audience whereas bloggers each have their own bias. You get a more honest view(not necessarily more accurate) by sampling the blogs than you ever will watching the spin that we call news.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
I think you're right, in fact its been my experience that most modern cookers are designed so the gasket between the lid and the pot will give way and leak pressure pretty much every time you use it. They've also been redesigned so you can't lose the little weight that sits on top, but that means that you a) don't get the "chukka chukka" noise and b) they are messier and harder to clean.
Mon chien, il n'a pas du nez. Comment scent-il? TrÃs mauvais!
News channels are pissy at social media and aggregators for having an unfair advantage.
If people submitted their cell phone video to FOXNEWS and not FACEBOOK this would not be a story.
Did Tech Websites Exploit the Boston Marathon Bombing?
Duh, yeah of course. The Internet is a tool to exploit information, it's the way gov'ts (which primary task is to exploit information for the benefit of the people) designed it (and the corporations love it).
is that "formal" news organizations are frustrated at their increasing (and mostly self-created) irrelevance as corporate shills, propaganda outlets that gave up real journalism long ago and protect the status quo more than anything. The days of Woodward and Bernstein are gone. Now they are struggling to profit because people have realized they are irrelevant, so they are lashing out with propaganda trying to stigmatize "non-formal" media that is doing a better job.
Facts are facts, whether sensationalized or not. the fact remains that in this day and age of tech, it was tech that gave law enforcement the ability to act as quickly as they did. Tech collated all the raw data - something that the many traditional companies have yet to embrace.
This seems more like someone not doing their job and getting called on it