Blaming the messenger

Good morning.

As I have shared with many of you before, I am a not of fan of new technology just for new technology’s sake.

Just because a computer is slightly faster or a phone has 4G instead of 3G capability does not automatically make it superior.

Like most of us, I need to be shown why some new advance is better before I will use it.

For example, I have learned to text not because I think it is fun to stare at a small screen jabbing at buttons less than a third the size of my thumb, but because I have to stay linked to people to do my job.

Similarly, I did not start using Facebook because I suddenly wanted 500 new friends. I started using it because others showed me how it can help me better stay in touch with friends, family and readers and how it can help the paper get better exposure for its stories and editorials.

If that makes me sound like a slightly conservative, middle aged guy, well guess what, that is what I probably am. So I am comfortable with that label.

What I am not comfortable with, however, has been the recent trend of people blaming social media for the phenomena known as flash mobs, where groups of youngsters have robbed and looted stores, attacked bystanders and, in the case of London, engaged in general rioting.

And while London and other cities in England certainly saw the worst of this behavior, these mobs have also been blamed for incidents in Philadelphia, Cleveland and several other U.S. cities.

After every attack, the mantra has been that the youngsters involved used social media to organize and plan these attacks.

The problem with that thinking, is that, in many cases, it has mostly been wrong.

If said right, you can make the word social media sound like godless commie or hippie freak. And just as many people in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s were unsure of where the country was headed and saw all long-haired young men as potential subversives, so too do some people today see youngsters who spend all day with a phone in their hands texting away.

In both cases it is more fear than rational thought, however, and we in the media need to be particularly careful about how these incidents are portrayed.

In one case in Cleveland, a number of teenagers disrupted a street fair in Cleveland with their unruly behavior and it was widely reported that they had used social media — such as Facebook and Twitter — to gather.

Based on those reports, the Cleveland City Council passed an ordinance that would have criminalize the use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media in the city for assembling unruly crowds or encouraging people to commit a crime. Fortunately, the mayor vetoed the bill because he was worried that it quite likely would not pass constitutional muster, and, as more facts began to emerge about what had really happened, the city council backed away from the ordinance and allowed the veto to stand.

What had happened in Cleveland, and in many other cases where flash mobs have occurred, is that it turns out that people get unruly when a mob — for any reason — starts to form. It isn’t people texting each other that they are going to loot a store, it is a big group rushing a store and looting it because they feel that somehow it isn’t as bad when everyone is doing it together.

Don’t get me wrong. Looting is looting no matter how it starts and it is needs to punished.

But this fear that social media somehow caused these mobs to turn criminal appears to be misplaced.

Social media does allow people together more quickly than they once used to be able to do. Take the case in Cleveland. It is likely that one person tweeted or group texted many of their friends to say they would be at the street fair at 6 p.m., everyone come on down.

And people can say virtually whatever they want to say in a text, tweet or on their Facebook page.

But making it illegal to post something using a social medium is questionable at best. There are things you can’t say but those laws are pretty specific. It is better to focus on someone’s actions and hold them accountable for that.

No matter how they gathered, if a flash mob develops and people in it commit a crime then bust them for the crime. Blame the person, not the message medium.

The best part of this story, for me, is that in some cases the police who started out by criticizing social media have now turned to — you guessed it — social media to help solve these crimes and identify perpetrators.

It turns out the establishment can learn all of the same tricks that the young and tech-savvy know.

It just takes more time.

Tim Rogers is editor of The Daily Citizen. He can be reached at timrogers@daltoncitizen.com.

Tim Rogers

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