Perspective

[lillibet]

NPR reports that "Social media played a large role in the investigation and reporting of the Boston Marathon bombing case. It also provided many hateful, racist comments online."

And I have to say that I am pleased that my bubble did not happen to include any of these comments. I saw a lot of people posting for tolerance and understanding, which was pretty cool. There was discussion of race and ethnicity, but it was generally thoughtful and respectful.

What I'm hearing from my friends and family who were in the areas affected by the bombing, the shooting, the lockdown is praise for the professionalism, effectiveness, and occasional kindness of the police involved in resolving this situation. Praise for them managing to bring the 2nd suspect into custody alive. Pleas to the President not to disrespect our state's refusal of the death penalty by seeking it in this case and concern for the rights of the suspect. A feeling of community, of support for those killed and wounded, an openness to each other, a desire to learn from this experience.

What I am seeing only from people who do not live within this zone are accusations of police overstepping their authority, conspiracy theories, gun advocacy, desires for revenge, finger pointing and blame. Is this their way of making it somehow about them?

I don't know. I'm not there.

Comments

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

The self-righteousness...it burns.
It makes them feel important.

[ron_newman]

The main social media failure I'm aware of is the mistaken identification of a missing Brown University student as one of the suspects. This caused a lot of pain to his family, and Reddit has apologized for its role in this affair.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Agreed. It's the people from far away who just don't get it.

One thing, I think, is that living/working in a big city is very different than doing so rurally or even in the suburbs. For all that we complain about Boston being a "cold" city, I think that just interacting with *all those people* all the time fosters a sort of communal feeling even among strangers. In a rural area, you'd get that feeling among people you know, but you wouldn't be rubbing shoulders with people you don't know. This is not a good set-up for trust. And the suburbs are (can be) so isolating, with benefits of neither city or rural area.

A lot of folks out in the "wide open spaces" really don't get the ethos of the city.

[cz_unit]

The goal is to promote one's point of view, not to promote truth, or whatever. Promote the view....

[spwebdesign.livejournal.com]

I was impressed with the way most places I came across news or discussion about these events handled it, with one glaring exception. You may have noticed it, but one of the papers here, I think it was The Times, had a huge headline splashed across their front page about "Chechen Terrorists," which of course is a gross misrepresentation. Everyone else, though, as you say, seemed to be generally thoughtful and respectful.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

The article fails to mention that one of the sites searching for terrorists was 4CHAN, the home of many Internet trolls. So unfortunately, I'm not surprised about their being hateful comments accompanying their search. (XKCD on 4CHAN: http://xkcd.com/591/ )

Reddit also isn't a paragon of responsibility.