I found an article about the hostage situation in Mumbai, India this weekend. Apparently social networking sites and blogs were used by some of the hostages in the hotel, and that blood donations were solicited by users of Twitter (a social networking site) for specific hospitals who were running low on supplies in the aftermath.
"Mumbai is not a city under attack as much as it is a social media experiment in action."
the above quote sums it up pretty well, i guess this counterbalences the webcam suicide story, even if alot of the posts during the situation contained misinformation and outlandish rumors.
The internet can be a vehicle for compassion as well as a cesspool of indifference and cruelty depending on what people choose to use it for.
4 comments:
this reminds me of the V-tech shooting... only more productive. I remember everyone joining support groups for the victims and their families... but I didn't like how these groups made people feel like by joining the group they were helping the situation. The Mumbai Internet activity sounds like a real response.
this also reminds me of how someone mentioned selling game items on ebay and that there were conversion charts for game money and real money for video games/internet games, whatever.
definitely interesting in conjunction with the florida boy who killed himself via webcam over a message board last week. apparently, people had reactions varying from boredom to laughter, and no one even thought to call the police until long after the boy was passed out. the full article in the new york times discusses this new internet reality. it's in contrast to what you're writing about here, but i thought i might throw it out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/us/25suicides.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=florida%20teen%20kills%20himself&st=cse
No question, the internet reflects us. And that will cover everything, the good, the bad, the ugly, the lovely, the light, the heavy, the best, the worst, the funniest and most tragic, and on and on and on and on....creatively, stupidly, vastly, wondrously, terrifyingly, real as real and very far away...and on and on and more. We will continue to be amazed at ourselves and our world. What a space we live in!
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