The Inevitable Post-Tragedy Witch Hunt: 'Mass Effect' Facebook Page Attacked Because Of Link To Misidentified Shooting Suspect

from the a-whole-bunch-of-'wrongs'-in-search-of-a-'right' dept

Whenever something truly horrific happens, there's a good chance that people will find someone or something to hold at least partially responsible for the atrocity. The most immediate reactions are often the worst... and the most misplaced.

The recent school shooting in Connecticut led to just such a reaction. As news began to spread about the tragedy, some Facebook users began lashing out at a couple of targets. One, a user named Ryan Lanza, felt some immediate heat and hatred soon after police mistakenly named him, rather than his younger brother Adam, as the shooter.

Soon after discovering the wrong Lanza's profile, the attack moved on to Mass Effect's Facebook page. According to commenters, Ryan had "Liked" this page at some point and to many of those looking to blame someone, anyone, it was all the justification they needed. A game with guns had to be partially responsible for the horrific event.

Here's a sampling of the first post-tragedy comments, where you can see the tide change from Mass Effect fans to misdirected anger:

It's ugly and inevitable. Any sizable tragedy usually results in some form of backlash or witch hunt. Social networks and forums where reactions can be instantaneous and numerous lend themselves to this sort of unfortunate behavior.

And as ugly and inevitable as it is, it's also understandable. Situations like these tend to make people feel both helpless and angry, a combination that lends itself to taking it out on the nearest proxy as the perpetrator is dead or in custody and thus, unreachable.

Bioware, to its credit, has made the wisest choice. It has not responded to any of the comments blaming its game for supposedly developing a killer. It has also allowed the comments to remain posted on its page, where they can speak for themselves.

As for Ryan Lanza, things went considerably worse. Fortunately, most Facebook users were unable to do more than send him messages and Friendship requests, thanks to his privacy settings. But even with these limits curbing the collateral damage, Ryan ended up deleting his Facebook account. The hate that was directed towards him was slightly more "justified," as law enforcement had named him as the gunman before issuing a correction. Unfortunately, since the crowd was unable to attack Ryan directly, it turned on his "Friends" list, sending completely uninvolved people "hundreds (literally) of hate-filled messages."

This won't be the last large-scale tragedy we see, or even the last misguided witch hunt. We can only hope that it will be very long time until see either again, although I'd rather see a million misguided torch-carriers burn half the internet to the ground than see a repeat of the Connecticut tragedy. But, despite that fact, I would sincerely hope that those who harassed innocent people in response to this horrific event choose not to repeat their mistakes when the next tragedy inevitably strikes.

Filed Under: mass effect, newtown, sandy hook, tragedy, video games, witch hunt

Doctor Who Uploaded Rorschach Images Now Being Investigated

from the can-we-look-up-witch-hunt dept

A few weeks back, we wrote about the argument over whether or not it was okay that a doctor had uploaded the public domain (and available in pretty much any library) original Rorschach ink blots to Wikipedia. The whole thing was perfectly legal and reasonable in the view of many. But some strong believers in the ink blots seem to think that even though the images are in the public domain, they have some sort of right over them. The thinking, on their part, is that keeping the ink blots secret protects the integrity of the test -- which totally ignores the fact that these ink blots are already widely available (and the fact that it seems rather unlikely that all that many people are going to "study up" for their Rorschach tests.

But, it hasn't stopped a witch hunt against the guy who uploaded the images. Apparently, he's being investigated by his local doctors' organization for "unprofessional" actions. The complaints against him are equally ridiculous. They say that this is "serious misconduct" because he "shows disrespect to his professional colleagues in psychology and disparages them in the eye of the public."

So apparently no doctor is ever allowed to question any methods used by psychologists? Yikes. Talk about a chilling effect.

Even more to the point, I fail to see how sharing public domain knowledge with the world can be unprofessional or an ethical breach. It seems like the exact opposite. I would think it's a hell of a lot more unethical to trump up bogus ethics charges and investigations against the doctor who actually put that content on Wikipedia.

Filed Under: rorschach, wikipedia, witch hunt

Cop Gets Investigated Because MySpace Friend Links To Porn

from the you-have-to-be-kidding dept

Rich Kulawiec writes in to let us know about a ridiculous situation in Florida, that has some similarities to the ridiculous Julie Amero situation. Basically, a bunch of school officials and local newspaper folks are freaking out about the potential for students to access porn and are blaming the wrong people while displaying stunning levels of ignorance.

The basics of the situation are pretty straightforward. A cop who works at a middle school in Florida has a MySpace account, that he set up with the approval of the police department and the school, hoping it would allow him to connect with the kids he's supposed to be protecting. One of his many, many friends on MySpace happened to link to a porn site on their own profile. So, because one friend out of a huge list of friends happens to link to a porn page, the cop is now under investigation with the local paper dramatizing the situation by noting that students could (gasp!) get to porn "in just three clicks." Apparently, they're investigating whether the officer is criminally liable for exposing children to inappropriate content -- yes, because someone on his friend's list linked to porn. Under that definition, an awful lot of people are probably guilty.

Ah, but the story gets better (or worse, actually). You see, after some investigation, people noticed that the school's own website actually linked directly to a porn site itself -- which would seem a lot worse than what the police officer did. In this case, the school had a list of "resources" and one of the links was on a domain that had expired and was taken over by a porn site. Now, using the logic that the school used in having the police officer investigated, shouldn't the school officials also be investigated? Apparently not. Instead, they're angry about the changing domain and are looking at "legal recourse."

So, to summarize: If you happen to work at a school and have a MySpace profile where one friend of many links to a porn site via his own MySpace page: potentially illegal exposure of porn to children. If you work at a school and set up a website that directly links to porn: you're a victim who should be suing the website in question. Very logical.

Filed Under: porn, school police, social networks, witch hunt