I read this just now as part of a Canadian story which i will link below.
-"We all know that reading comments sections can be hazardous for your mental health, but there are some themes that continue to come up again and again any (these) people are discussed in the media, and we need to address these beliefs. I have been trying my best on this blog to refute the myths and stereotypes, but I don’t have all the free time in the world that I’d like, and so my ‘myth-busting list‘ remains unfinished."
It immediately caught my eye. I have argued for a long time how social media tends to somehow invent truths and peolple-s opinions become accepted as fact, when they can often be inaccurate.
The story is of the
Idle no More campaign presently gathering steam in Canada and US as the natives are certainly getting restless at the Fed-s clawing back Indian-s rights and obligations of treaties at this time in favour of resourse development and less environmental assesment and study and bringing about sweeping autocratic reforms to First Nation-s interests.
The reason I have brought up the story here is to point out that rumour, speculation, bigotted comments and prejudices so often found in comments sections of news stories, blogs and forums are misleading the masses to a great extent cause ya can-t have a cause without a forum or blog and comments these days, which opens the communications to anyone with 2 minutes to rant.. As Sparky said, "You have no website, you don-t exist".
I see this occur in these funny pages on a regular basis. Someone will hear a story or make a supposition and a few related comments follow and before you know it, it-s common knowledge and known fact. My point is that it is oftem negative and can cause harm. I am guilty as many for spreading misinformation but I try to get facts a lot too. I most often get stuff close but who-s to really know? The five W-s is what I strive for but, who-s to say why? Not my place to do more than speculate on why someone did something.
If you can get a video on Youtube to go viral and it blacken-s the eye of a North American large corporation, you can likely settle your dispute without any legal process in court. It almost occured with Loblaws last week over home made frozen yogurt and a sob story gone viral. A lot cheaper than an 8 year litigation!
Here-s the rest of the Canadain story for those of you interested. There-s some new to me terminology regarding this phenomena as well.
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fullcomment.nationalpost.com]
(What-s topical is the word i want to spread about computer forums and blogs and how things can get distorted as I see often in this rag. It can and does hurt people and businesses. It-s great to be anonymous for your own protection, i-m sure butt, is it fair to the guys you are criticizing with gossip, one sided stories, prejudice and just a lot of misinformation? I don-t think the subject is off topic at all considering some of what I have read and said over the last 3 years here in tomzap.)