Re: Swine flu: Twitter's power to misinform

["Tomas L. Byrnes" <tomb () byrneit net>]

Am I the only one who remembers the days when twitting meant putting
someone in your killfile? (Yes, I know the twits at Twitter like to call
it tweeting.)

We're seeing first hand, in many venues, why pure democracy and populism
don't work; and why only a Republic can long last without degenerating
into chaos, and then dictatorship.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: funsec-bounces () linuxbox org [mailto:funsec-bounces () linuxbox org]
> On Behalf Of Paul Ferguson
> Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 3:21 PM
> To: funsec () linuxbox org
> Subject: [funsec] Swine flu: Twitter's power to misinform
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Via Foreign Policy's net.effect.
>
> [snip]
>
> Who knew that swine flu could also infect Twitter? Yet this is what
> appears
> to have happened in the last 24 hours, with thousands of Twitter users
> turning to their favorite service to query each other about this
nascent
> and potentially lethal threat as well as to share news and latest
> developments from Mexico, Texas, Kansas and New York (you can check
most
> recent Twitter updates on the subject by searching for "swine flu" and
> "#swineflu"). And despite all the recent Twitter-enthusiasm about this
> platform's unique power to alert millions of people in decentralized
and
> previously unavailable ways, there are quite a few reasons to be
> concerned
> about Twitter's role in facilitating an unnecessary global panic about
> swine flu.
>
>
> First of all, I should point out from the very outset that anyone
trying
> to
> make sense of how Twitter's "global brain" has reacted to the prospect
> of the swine flu pandemic is likely to get disappointed. The "swine
> flu" meme has so far  that misinformed and panicking people armed with
a
> platform to broadcast their fears are likely to produce only more fear,
> misinformation and panic.
>
> [snip]
>
> More:
>
> http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/04/25/swine_flu_twitters_
p
> owe
> r_to_misinform
>
> - - ferg
>
>
> p.s.  Here's something a bit more useful -- a Goggle Maps mash-up that
> tracks the swine flu cases:
>
> http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_maps/google_mapping_swine_f
l
> u_e
> pidemic.html?kc=rss
>
>
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> --
> "Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
> Engineering Architecture for the Internet
> fergdawgster(at)gmail.com
> ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/
>
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