I think I will give up my practice of daily reading the Comments section of news items appearing on our two local electronic news outlets. I like the fact that these Comment sections allow people to express their opinions on a news item. Occasionally a person might garner a sense of how public opinion could sway the decision makers but lately, I suspect those in power are becoming jaded over the nonsense found on social media.
We might have been forewarned of this had we paid attention several years ago when comedian Rick Mercer suggested an email petition to change Stockwell Day’s first name to Doris and there was a massive response. In that instance, Rick was trying to show how silly it would be to have a referendum on Stockwell’s idea for reform in parliament. Although a joke at first, it did show the power of social media and since then others have tried to garner support for ideas, plans and schemes.
It is now so easy and fast to reach millions of people through the various commercial apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that polling companies can find support or disagreement on almost anything. In the case of disasters, money can be collected for relief work and this can marshal dollars for good very quickly. People will even invest in start-up companies by pushing a button after reading a prospectus on their communicator. People will also pass along to their ‘friends’ all sorts of nonsense, or stories that they have no idea are correct or are a total fabrication.
Celebrities are good targets for scandalous news and people will jump either to their defense or convict them in the media without a thorough understanding of what may or may not have happened. Much of this instant opinion making can be the fault of the electronic media, who because of space, time or the need to break a story, report fewer details than are needed to form a solid opinion by the reader. In the olden days, newspapers were very conscientious about getting the story right, verifying sources and having an editor who could at least spell before printing a story. Today, not so much.
How many people jumped on the Jian Ghomeshi bandwagon and then had to jump off, change wagons and eat a little crow? How many think Bill Cosby is guilty? Did Prince Andrew really have sex with an under-age girl? Did you see the picture of so-and-so, the screen star in the altogether? Tweet if you think it was Photoshopped.
A perfect example of how the comments on an article become useless is the local story about a man and his dog that may have – or may not have – bitten (the dog, not the man) someone who may have been or not drunk and may have or may not have kicked (at) the dog. No one likes to see a pet put down and no one wants to put people in danger of being bitten by a dog, so people piled on in the Comment sections about this news item.
The problem was that the reporting was scant at best. The facts were never made clear, either by the dog’s owner or by the Health Unit. If, for privacy reasons, they could not release the facts, then the news people ought not to have printed a story that they could not verify. A quiet news day is no excuse for stirring people up to the point where threats were made, albeit through the almost anonymous names (we know your IP address and your finger prints are all over your communicator!) of Facebook, email and other social media.
That these comments are made by some people who it seems have trouble reading, let alone writing in a language that used to be taught in grade school, is reason enough for some news items to appear without a Comments section. Using capital letters and or an acronym to shout out common obscenities is about as subtle as a sledge hammer. And to advertise your inability to think may be chic in your circle of your friends forever but does nothing to add to a discussion of events or ideas.
Maybe we are not so far removed from the days of the masses in the Roman coliseum giving their thumbs up or down on a hapless fellow who came in second in a sword fight. Exercising one’s freedom to speak and text is wonderful but maybe we should remember that with every keystroke or tap of a symbol on a communicator, we are putting dollars in some millionaire’s pocket. Speech is not free so the next time you want to give your two cents worth (sorry – that’s from an age when we had copper pennies), please think before you type or utter a single word. Somebody may be reading what you have said and may even think you are correct in your assessment. After all, they read it on a computer . . .
