Fake Sandy Tweets Spark Widespread Debate About The Limits Of Free Speech
from the or-threatening-him-with-jail dept
Yesterday we had a post about Shashank Tripathi, the "internet jackass" who, posting under the name @comfortablysmug on Twitter, shared some bogus reports during Hurricane Sandy, such as claiming that the NY Stock Exchange floor was flooded and that the local power company was preemptively turning off power. The story has generated a fair bit of interest, and follow up discussions that are pretty interesting. I wanted to tackle three particular threads that have come out of the discussion.- Greg Ferenstein at TechCrunch argues that I'm wrong in saying that public shame is as far as punishment should go for Tripathi. Instead, he argues that such speech should be illegal, because while other comments can moderate speech in normal times, at exceptional moments there somehow isn't time to understand that Tripathi wasn't being truthful:
The case against public shaming is that, during a crisis, Twitter isn’t a magical marketplace of ideas, where citizens are given sufficient time to weigh competing claims and come to a reasonable conclusion. Adrenalin is pumping, there’s not enough time for credible sources to sniff out the truth, and people get hurt.
To which I can only respond: who got hurt because of his tweets? The answer is no one. No one was busting out of their safe apartment to rush dangerously down to the NYSE to see the (non-)flooded floor. Yet, because of populist anger, it appears that at least one NY politician is pushing to press charges. I think this is bogus, and any smart prosecutor will note that the chances of success are slim at best.
- Moving on, Mathew Ingram at GigaOm raises a different question: whether it was even appropriate to out Tripathi. He fears that the backlash against Tripathi could go overboard and "community action against an anonymous troll" could all too easily turn into "a lynch mob." In some ways, this is the opposite argument of Ferensteins. Both are basically asking: "but what if this leads to harm?" They may be valid questions to ponder -- and we've certainly worried about the possibility of "lynch mobs" doing damage based on bad information. But I'm not convinced that should ever lead to the legal silencing of speech.
Not surprisingly, there are a lot of emotionally driven opinions on all this -- in fact GigaOm had such a vociferous internal debate among writers/editors at the site that they published the internal discussion publicly.
- However, I think the most important and insightful piece on this entire story comes from Heidi Moore at the Guardian who put the whole story in perspective by making a few key points that were missed by almost everyone arguing about the story.
- If you looked at Tripathi's other tweets, it became really obvious really quickly that he was posting crap/jokes -- mostly for the semi-amusement of his few thousand followers. For example he fake retweeted a bogus tweet from Goldman Sachs saying: "In a city underwater, the vampire squid is king" and similarly fake retweeted Barack Obama's account saying that NYC residents should eat their dogs if they run out of food. These aren't particularly funny, but it sort of puts in context the kinds of tweets he was posting, such that you could see how his followers would mostly know that he was just tweeting stupid stuff not to be taken seriously.
- Given that, the real problem here was not with Tripathi acting like a jackass clown, but with professional journalists and organizations -- including the National Weather Service and CNN -- who retweeted his other bogus tweets, lending them a veneer of truthfulness where none existed.
- Moore also points out that this is nothing like a "fire in a theater" situation because there is no harm. Hell, as she points out, there is no "theater" where the fire is supposedly being claimed here:
For one thing, where was the theater? People in New York were largely trapped at home. Were they really going to run screaming into the streets, unable to handle the idea of the New York Stock Exchange being flooded? Were emergency responders going to stop answering calls to ferry over to the Stock Exchange to prevent water damage to the floors? Would people turn off their generators, hoping to save power for the day when stocks could be traded again? No, no and no.
As one fund manager at a $6bn hedge fund concisely put it on Twitter: "Is it really the end of the world if the floor floods? This is just getting stupid." - She notes that if anyone should be called out here, it should be the journalists who repeated the tweets without any sort of confirmation. To those who say that it was in the heat of the moment, even that is questionable. Sure, there was as rush for journalists to be the first to retweet some news, but that's an issue for the journalists to deal with. Most people were just hunkered down dealing with the storm, not rushing off to deal with any of this. And if those journalists had done even the slightest research, they would have realized the tweets were bogus -- either by looking at his full feed, or even looking at how others had responded to his tweets. Moore makes a strong case:
Here's the thing: while what Tripathi did was stupid, inappropriate, ill-timed and loathsome, the reaction to it was entirely out of scale to the actual offense. The truth is, Tripathi had a relatively small niche on Twitter. His influence would have been limited had not journalists on Twitter been desperate for information to share, regardless of provenance.
He was not the person who affixed those headlines atop legitimate news sources: journalists, who should have checked their sources and did not, used their power of the press to popularize the claim and bring it into people's homes. The decision to publish Tripathi's information was made by journalists, even when his persona and the nature of the information called for skepticism.
In fact, the first responses to his tweet on the NYSE, from non-journalists, were as follows: "That's bullshit"; "What are the sources for your links?"; "confirmed by whom?" and "you are a liar."
But in the end, I stick with the principles that more speech tends to be a good thing -- and free speech should be encouraged, even if that speech is Tripathi's tweets in poor taste. Remember, free speech doesn't mean that you're free from the consequences of that speech, and Tripathi is dealing with the consequences. Similarly, outing him through old fashioned journalism is also free speech. Finally, all of the ongoing discussion is more free speech. In none of this did anyone get hurt, and (hopefully) no one should need to get charged under the law. Things seem to work just fine without resorting to the judicial system.
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Filed Under: context, fire in a theater, free speech, jackass, journalism, limits, lynch mobs
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Nothing he tweeted was news, or should have been construed at all as news. NYSE flooding? Really? Someone, somewhere cared at all about that? Enough to bother retweeting? That's about as newsworthy as the Reddit pic of sliding doors holding back flood waters. IOW, not at all.
If this is what reporters rely on for their "reporting" then it's time they choose another line of work. (And if this bit of sophomoric tweeting is what Techdirt considers "loathsome" then it's time to put on your big boy pants and take a look around. Or at least start reading your own coverage or actual, meaningful events.)
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This is why you get a rash of media sensationalism when someone writes an inappropriate comment on social media and why you get opportunistic people who use such events to further an anti-social media agenda.
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http://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-ar e-enough/
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And as I say in there, andvery much applies to these situations on Twitter (or anywhere for that matter) there is no neighbour duty, there is no immediate or imminent harm in publishing the fake/parody/joke tweets and the possibility of violence leading to harm of others (or even death) is too distant to enforce censorship of this nature EVER!
Otherwise we need to second and even third guess every single thing we produce anywhere on the premise that someone somewhere sometime might get butthurt enough that there own mental disorder or ideology or sense of 'moral fortitude' could cause them to be struck with a sense of "ow the pain in my arse is overwhelming and I must react for the benefit of my [insert whatever ego/power trip here] platform"
In regards to the Guardian response about the MSM retweeting these as 'fact', there MIGHT be a case of them not applying due diligence to obtain more than one source of hearsay.. but that's negligence to their readership MAYBE.
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> rescue workers sent to the NYSE to
> confirm the tweets.
The stock exchange was shut down. The guy was tweeting about flooding in an empty building.
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This is what happens when the major news media lays off tons of reporters. There's no one left to pound the streets for news. In bad weather, they are going to set at the computer and look for news or the syndicated news feeds. There's few to check the facts, even fewer it seems to find them.
It again reflects that the media is not doing its job and is instead looking to repeat other's output and claim it as news.
The long haul of all this is people no longer trust the major news feeds to be accurate nor bias free. People now go else where to get their news, compounding the problem of dwindling finances. Which is it should be.
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Jackass
Hint: If you believe one jackass, and dont follow up to see if its true with other sources, YOU are the jackass.
Stupidity of some people.
"the real problem here was not with Tripathi acting like a jackass clown, but with professional journalists and organizations -- including the National Weather Service and CNN -- who retweeted his other bogus tweets, lending them a veneer of truthfulness where none existed."
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Re: Jackass
So these "news" organizations took a tweet and repeated it as gospel. Why do we need them again? Wasn't it the community that revealed it to be a fraud? Yeah professional journalists alright. Ill take the consensus of many over the "facts" of the spineless media any day of the week.
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Re: Jackass
Why, then, do we not get calls to limit free speech when Hollywood accounts info is released?
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The only problem
Well said. Indeed, I would argue this is the only problem. Random people talking crap on twitter? Anyone with half a brain knows not to take it as factual without other supporting evidence.
Apparently, journalists and the NWS don't have half a brain. However, when the debate comes up about the value of professional journalism, they always say that the value they bring is fact-checking and accuracy and most people think they can be trusted.
The issue isn't someone on twitter talking nonsense, the issue is that organizations we are encouraged to trust violated that trust.
If any criminal charges are to be applied (and I don't think they should be), they should be applied against these organizations.
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Re: The only problem
I don't know about you, but those reporters out in the field had better things to do (like maybe surviving Hurricane Sandy fir instance) than fact checking tweets sent to them by a guy, who is claiming to be a victim of Sandy, who is giving disinformation, and is doing it for self amusement?
Inducing Panic =/= Free Speech.
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Also the "shouting Fire" analogy that people constantly quote is absolutely wrong and needs to be placed in the context of what it was originally meant to be.
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News Broadcasters and Rescue Workers:
"If you can please use the 333 line (to save the 911 line for life or death situations only) on Twitter to report damage done that impede rescue efforts."
Tripathi in lolz mode:
"Oh no!!! The NYSE is flooded!!!!"
"Oops, me sorry, just kidding!!!"
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Re: Re: Re: The only problem
> that people constantly quote is
> absolutely wrong and needs to be
> placed in the context of what
> it was originally meant to be.
Not to mention that case was overruled by subsequent cases and is no longer even good law.
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Re: Re: The only problem
> better things to do (like maybe surviving
> Hurricane Sandy fir instance)
Those reporters in the field had no business being there. A remote webcam can show rainswept streets and building surf just fine. There's no need for some guy to go out there and hang on to a lamp pole while shouting the obvious into a microphone about how, yes indeed, it's rainy and windy.
They do that crap for ratings, nothing more, so to use it as an excuse as to why there's no time for fact-checking is bollocks.
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This is why there must be no limits on opinions. There never has been a party who claimed to be able to police opinions for the good of the public who didn't fall into corruption, and there never will be.
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Free speech is hard, man.
If it's limited, it ain't free. I'll go so far as to say yelling "fire" in a crowded theater isn't some kind of abuse of free speech... it is inciting panic. You could do the same thing by setting off a firecracker or something. All of this also assumes the theater is not, in fact, on fire.
Free speech is often offensive, often untrue, frequently intentionally misleading and hurtful. That's a shame.
If we can't handle the bad with the good then we have to do away with all of it. If you don't think there's enough good to outweigh the bad, that's a shame, too.
Those of us who believe the good far outweighs the bad and maybe even that some of us might be just a touch too sensitive, have to be careful when we are dealing with speech we don't like.
In the US, where we use the phrase "free speech" constantly, that freedom has already eroded. The legal definition of "hate speech" ought to scare hell out of everyone.. but we now have a lot of forbidden words well beyond George Carlin's list.
This bozo on Twitter was merely a thoughtless dimwit. So far, that is legal. Anyone who believes everything they read on Twitter is a moron. That is also legal.
Can't we just move on? Grow up? It isn't all that easy, but it IS that simple.
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The tweet was later revealed to be not entirely accurate.
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But it's the internet...
I swear the dumbing down of America is in full overdrive anymore. We don't need more laws, we have plenty. You can't fix stupid or poor taste with laws.
You can't idiot proof the world, all you do is create BIGGER IDIOTS!
Was it done in poor taste, yes.
Were the journalists stupid for not verifying the stories? Absolutely!
Journalists keep claiming they have value over bloggers, but time and again the bloggers are faster and more accurate than they are. I thought journalism 101 was check your source and verify with a second source. Seems pretty basic to me.
So no need to prosecute. No need for new laws, regulations or controls. Now if the New York Stock Exchange wants to file a civil suit for libel, because it harmed their business that is fine.
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Re: But it's the internet...
A country with too many laws, is a country with too many problems - Codrut Magheru
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Re: Re: But it's the internet...
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"I'm tired of the "fire in a crowded theatre" analogy. Listen, if you think the potential for dangerous behaviour mandates censorship, do me this favour will you? Don't go to your government and protest for free speech limits: go to your government and protest for the banning of fire drills.
Lets see how fucking committed you are to this premise.
Anyone seen The Simpsons episode where everyone in the Nuclear Plant goes crazy over Mr Burns' fire drill? We all know what the point of that gag was."
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I hear it all the time in the debate over the Danish cartoons: "they knew what they were doing!", "is it really worth it?", "look at what they were inciting!".
But what many people forget is that as long as Christians and Jews do not start riots and try to destroy small democratic countries and their economies based on the fact that they are offended, we have every right to say that the same standard applies to Muslims, too. They also forget that there were many Muslims out there who did not take offense to the cartoons who could not make their voices heard over the intimidation.
And you have to remember: the cartoons were only part of the controversy a few months after their actual publication. There were Imams who deliberately hunted down even the mildest bit of satire against the religion's prophet, handing out copies of the cartoons to others in an effort to incite hatred of their own. Do you really think that these Imams handing out copies of the cartoons want the same censorship for themselves as they do for others? Of course not. This is a radical difference of interests: in this case, theocracy versus secularism.
This is why I have to treat the "fire" analogy with great skepticism.
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You can't "fix" the country by allowing lies.
Anyhoo. Let's say that emergency crews went in response to the report, just for a look, with all else as given, not any 911 call. Then it's clearly making a false report that gov't took action on, a waste of time and resources that carries some responsibility with it.
Simple rule: JUST DON'T EVER LIE, people.
Oh, and Mike is having another "no evidence of real harm" day, about the eighth already this week.
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Re: You can't "fix" the country by allowing lies.
You also have preachers, rabbis and imams to worry about. Not to mention the bogus rhetoric from tabloids about how coffee can both cure and stop cancer, along with every other thing known to man. You need to get real.
As the great Dr House always says, "Everybody Lies."
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Re: You can't "fix" the country by allowing lies.
http://www.barstoolsports.com/boston/super-page/does-this-look-like-the-face-of-a-guy-facin g-criminal-charges-because-news-outlets-believed-his-tweet-about-the-nyse-getting-flooded/
This made me laugh: ...anyone who likes Free Speech even a little bit ought to be terrified. I mean, after the storm I Tweeted that Tim Tebow was taking time off to finish building the Ark. Does this mean that if CNN repeated the joke and it caused a bunch of religious nutjobs started gathering animals together, I could go to jail? Because if you can face criminal charges for Tweeting something the Old Media was dumb enough to fall for, they�re gonna need a bigger jail.
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Re: Re: You can't "fix" the country by allowing lies.
There comes a point where you just have to say "stupidity is something we have to live with", and not try to dangerously escalate that stupidity by coming up with stupid censorship laws.
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Re: You can't "fix" the country by allowing lies.
You may not have noticed, but that's the way the world has worked since people began to communicate.
You should never believe anything anybody has said just because they said it. Ever. This is not new. You need corroborating evidence of some sort.
Some people may have a good track record and so if they say it you might consider it more likely to be true -- but that's still not believing it just because they said it, you are factoring in reputation (past history).
This isn't even about lying -- honest people can also be wrong.
Yes, and the responsibility would lay with the crews that took action based on nothing but unsubstantiated rumor.
You first.
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Re: You can't "fix" the country by allowing lies.
Is it your usual point that he "lied" here and that there was harm? Because you don't actually disagree with his conclusion. You only offer a weird hypothetical about an emergency crew responding to a tweet as they would a 911 call.
As for the pattern, Mike is reporting on a pattern of overreach and hysteria regarding digital communications. The proper way to do that is to point it out more than once. I know that drawing conclusions from facts, or even repeating things factually, is a weak area of yours, so I recommend you look to Mike's posts to see how it's done.
Oh, and the tweeter did not lie. He tweeted a joke.
Oh, and it's not illegal to lie.
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Re: You can't "fix" the country by allowing lies.
(Sorry, I'm not allowed to lie anymore, apparently.)
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Re: You can't "fix" the country by allowing lies.
> equate "free speech" with saying anything
> you want without regard to Truth.
The 1st Amendment does not have a truth requirement. If you think it does, please cite it.
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Re: Re: Re: You can't "fix" the country by allowing lies.
> people to make unnecessary risk to go check
> on the building to make sure of the accuracy
> of the report.
That's on them, then. There was no need for them to go there. If they decided to do it anyway, it's their responsibility.
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How about we don't make incorrect tweets illegal, but instead teach critical thinking and common sense in schools? I mean... seriously?
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However, the potential harm here is not that people would run out of their apartments, but that financial markets would be impacted by his tweets.
Most other commentary on this subject has made that obvious, I thought.
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That got left behind in school because No Child Left Behind was more important. Since the teachers jobs are dependent on kids passing a test, passing a test is what is taught. Add to this the idea that we can save money by reducing the budget to schools which means less teacher time for more students and this is the result.
OOTB, you would be hilarious if you weren't such a troll. Nothing wrong with mangling the truth out of recognition but just don't lie eh? You should indeed take that advice. What you're dishing out lately isn't working so well since folks have started using the report button. Read the article and comments to get a clue.
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So you see, nobody is looking for a scapegoat, that user is going to her what he deserves.
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Free Speech vs Inducing Panic
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Re: Free Speech vs Inducing Panic
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:|
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Re: Re: Re: Free Speech vs Inducing Panic
Duce Duces
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Re: Free Speech vs Inducing Panic
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Re: Free Speech vs Inducing Panic
Or if a hermit goes downtown and waves a sign around that says "The End of The World is Upon Us!" and someone believes him and starts screaming in the street, should that hermit be criminally responsible? After all, he induced panic.
If I freak out because I overhear my co-workers discussing a zombie movie and I think the zombies are real, those co-workers should definitely be imprisoned because, you know. Inducing panic.
Actually, I'm panicking a little bit right now because you're allowed to vote despite your terrible and wrongheaded opinions. You should probably be lynched, or at least be put in the stocks in public with a sign over your head that says "INDUCED PANIC".
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I'm not seeing this as stupd, inappropriate, ill-timed, or loathsome. This is like getting pissed off because the news on the Onion was false. Like it or not, folks will make jokes during shit like this. This is like getting pissed off because someone says "Be right back, cat's on fire" and you're dumb enough to take it seriously.
Also, who cares if the NYSE floor floods? Worst case scenario, they have an excuse to get a better floor.
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No, it's really simple.
So they scoop up the trollshit and plaster it on headlines.
Then they're angry and humiliated, and they're so ashamed that they're much more willing to lynch the troll than to own up to their mistake.
Censorship bad. Reporters not checking sources, bad too.
It's THAT simple.
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