Yesterday I wrote about how I was sad for man kind if people keep sending & tolerating horrible comments to YouTube videos and other on-line sharing locations veiled by the anonymous nature of the internet. Well, I was pleasantly surprised today to see a comic on the GeekDad blog with the same sentiment.
Maybe we aren’t in as much trouble as I thought. Clearly there is an awareness of the issue out there and through that awareness hopefully the internet culture (of the few bad eggs out there) will change as we realize that we will not tolerate that kind of attitude towards each other.
The video is very cute, especially when little Charlie starts cracking up at the end. Maybe you have to be a parent who has had your finger bit by a kid to truly appreciate the humor, but that is not really the point. My frustration was not with the video, but rather with the comments below. There are people that are just mean to the family that posted this cute little video. Here is a brief example:
I think it is fine if Kanzo93 doesn’t find little Charlie funny, but does he really need to post that comment? I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but I guess I hope just hope for the best in people. I know the internet provides a certain level of anonymity, but what does Kanzo93 get out of post that? Now, maybe that was just one out of context comment from him, maybe is a normal happy guy. I tend to think not, but like I to believe the best in people. Let’s check his profile:
Alas, no, this 27 year old man from the UK is just mean. People like this just make the internet less fun. Now, I certainly don’t mean to just pick on this comment, because as you can see above and below, several other people felt the need to make just unnecessary comments. But, this was the one that happened to be there when I logged in tonight. Here are a more comments in the same vain.
I think what it comes to is The Golden Rule, If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. However, we need to start adopting an addition to that: If you wouldn’t say it in person, why say it online?
If these people actually met the dad and watched the video, they would never say those things. I’m not sure exactly how we change this mentality, but maybe it just takes each of us to call out one person when they see this behavior. Perhaps all we can do is be the model of the internet user we would like to see and hope the rest of the world follows. Or, maybe it can’t be changed at all. I hope that isn’t true because that would make me sad for humanity and I know we are moving towards a world where more and more communication is going to be faceless. Hopefully each us go forward and make sure our comments and appropriate and fair and hope that everyone else falls into line.
The most powerful feature in the Google Docs program is the ability to share and collaborate on documents. In order to do this you have to share the document with your team and give them the proper rights for that document.
Start by creating a new file, unless you have a file already that you wish to share.
Select the type of file you wish to create. In this case I chose document.
My wife pointed out a pretty cool occurrence tonight in the Twitterverse. Someone name Brian Scott (@bman6100) wanted to use a song by Brad Paisley in a PowerPoint for school. Apparently at his school he needs permission to use a song in this way. What was he to do?
Another person getting You Tubed. Here is Emmy Award winning news anchor Ernie Anastos from Fox 5 in New York saying, “Keep Fucking that Chicken.” Mr. Anastos says he meant to say, “Keep Plucking that Chicken,” which apparently means to keep trying at an arduous task.
For example:
This story probably wouldn’t have left New York if not for YouTube making it viral. I have seen it on The Daily Show and heard it discussed on the Nick Digilio Show on WGN because it was high on the Yahoo Buzz Search.
I would like to coin a new term, “Getting You Tubed.” I don’t know if someone has already coined a similar term, but I will take credit. When that means is that you do something bad that would have been buried in your regional news 3 to 4 years ago, but now because of You Tube and other web 2.0 technologies, the story goes huge.
The most current example is Congressman Pete Stark from California. The conversation went like this: Senior Citizen to Congressman Stark: “Don’t pee on my leg and then tell me it’s raining.”
Congressman Stark’s Response: “I wouldn’t dignify you by peeing on your leg – I wouldn’t waste the urine”.
Before YouTube, this comment maybe would have made the pages of a paper in California, but now it is a national story I heard about on a NPR’s Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me quiz show, all because of YouTube. I think this is an example that shows that all public figures need to be on notice, that if you say something unprofessional or beneath your level, it will get noticed and it can travel across the globe.
But, of course there are those who do not use Twitter wisely and get themselves in trouble. There is the infamous story of the person who got a job offer from Cisco and tweeted about it and, seemed to lose the job. It went down like this:
Even after this, you still see an amazing number of people post negative comments about their work place and other situations on Twitter. I think part of the problem is that people don’t realize how big Twitter is becoming and they don’t realize how public Twitter can be if their profiles are not set to private.
Well, now we are getting to a point where people are being sued over their tweets. I guess this was inevitable, but we entering into a new dimension of the Web 2.0 world. Here is the summary of the story:
Now, we know that Horizon is a “sue first, ask questions later kind of organization,” so I don’t want to get in trouble with this post. (Although this philosophy makes me think the tenant probably was in the right here.) But rather I’d like to talk about the idea of being sued on the internet.
Since this company filed a suit, I looked up what exactly what libel is to see if this was justified:
So, technically it seems this lawsuit would fall under this category. One aspect I am unsure of is if a company can file a libel suit. The FAQ above mentions when a person is wronged, but maybe it can go either way. In this case, the comment was made about a company. But, in this case the statement was definitely made to more than one person and it was clear who the comment was about. The question I guess would come down to whether or not there was mold in her apartment and if Horizon did anything about it. (Was the statement false or not?)
I think what blows my mind is the mindset of the management company here. Now, this tweet happened on May 12th, and the lawsuit happens two and a half months later. That seems odd. Why bring it up now?
Next, this news story, and their law suit is doing more damage, in my mind, to their company’s name than that tweet, that I never saw, ever did. I got the impression from the story that Horizon doesn’t even really care or want to address if there was mold in the apartment or not. Maybe this tweet was necessary and accurate. Continue Reading…
