digital weapon

The search for digital weapon wielded a result that I found pretty unexpected. I found an article from The Guardian that discusses the effect of the internet on feedback and complaints. The article also relates complaints and feedback from a radio show with the Obama campaign. This is a very interesting idea. The internet provides users to voice their feedback immediately and most certainly has more exposure than just yelling into the air. Of course, this has been around for years now at this point but it seems like Obama was really the first to properly utilize the internet in his campaign. Anyway, right now pretty much anyone who has an internet connection sound off their opinion and, in this case, cause some pretty large ramifications. I think that it is good that more people nowadays can have their voices heard but it is so easy for these things to get out of control. For example, this is a much more common way that this instant access can affect someone. In this case, people using Twitter started a rumor that began to catch on and eventually became so popular that people began to believe that it could be true. This happens on Twitter much more often with false reports of a celebrities death for example. I think that this is one of the more ugly parts of the internet. In a realtively short amount of time, news can spread that is totally eroneous and not many people can tell fact from fiction. This article from MSNBC spreads even more light on this phenomenon. Even though this blog looped around and evolved into something else, I think it made me realize that the instant services of Twitter and Facebook can't be trusted no matter how factual and proffessional they might sound. An Austrailian newspaper confirmed Jeff Goldblum's death when he was, in fact, very much alive. I think that the activists on the internet that are actually getting things changed is great but there are still so many people that don't realize the impact that their words can have. I think that everyone should really double check what they post on the internet because you never know what is going to become the newest trend.