This is so funny. I wish I were a White House press corp reporter right now so that I could go in and start asking Bush questions about this.
Many bloggers have complained about myFOXdfw.com's very loose moderation of the blogs. Unfortunately many of those same bloggers also complained with myFOXdfw.com had a stricter policy of policing "rudeness." So I've decided to share this article.
Rudeness on the internet is not a new concept, nor is it unique to myFOXdfw.com. It comes naturally with the environment. Should it? No way! Our parents all taught us better. But apparently there's something about the Internet that makes morals fly out the door.
So... read this article. Understand that we at myFOXdfw.com are not willing to start policing childish behavior. Nor do we think you'll want us to approve all blogs and posts or require you to post your real names. We will keep an open mind to any real solution that you can suggest, though. And in the meantime, we are working on a feature that would allow you to approve or deny comments on your blog before they appear.
Rudeness, threats make the Web a cruel world
By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO — Brooke Brodack remembers her first online "hater."
Nearly two years ago, the person posted rude
comments about a video she had posted on YouTube, says Brodack, 21, of
San Francisco, whose videos show her lip-syncing and creating
characters. "It was shocking to me. Why would someone want to be so
mean for no reason?"
Why, indeed? Nasty comments, sometimes even
death threats, have become ubiquitous on virtually any website that
seeks to engage readers in discussion.
"Ur ugly u suk and u should die," says a typical
comment beneath one of Brodack's many videos. Such vulgar messages have
inspired heated discussions, and video responses, on YouTube.
The Internet always has had an anything-goes
atmosphere where flame wars and harsh language are common. Now there
are more places than ever for people to spout their thoughts — often
with relative anonymity — thanks to the explosion in blogs, social
networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and comments sections on
nearly every news site.
But a series of incidents, including one
involving a female technology blogger who briefly went into hiding
after receiving sexually explicit death threats, has made online
incivility an increasingly hot topic and fueled a debate over how to
balance free speech with social etiquette.
"The information superhighway has become the
mean streets of cyburbia," says Silicon Valley technology forecaster
Paul Saffo. "It's just gotten steadily worse.
"If cocktail parties were like the Internet,
half the people would come home every night dripping wet from glasses
of Chardonnay tossed in their faces," Saffo says. "There are two ways
to get famous in cyberspace: Say something clever and memorable, or say
something outrageous. And unfortunately, it's a lot easier to be
outrageous than clever and memorable."
On many online sites, people are kind and supportive and have formed virtual communities.
"People on the Net are overwhelmingly
trustworthy and civil to each other," says Craig Newmark, founder of
Craigslist, the popular community bulletin board site. "But there's
always fanatic and crazy people out there."
Like many sites, Craigslist relies largely on
readers to police behavior: If enough people flag an ad or comment as
inappropriate, it's removed automatically or reviewed.
Many sites, including those operated by newspapers, remove offensive comments reported by readers or staff members.
"They want to allow free speech, but at the same
time, they want to do it in a respectable way," says Ellyn Angelotti,
interactivity editor at the Poynter Institute, which does continuing
education for journalists. "They want to make sure it's not turning
their other users away."
'It really crossed the line'
Several newspapers, wary of outrageous posts by
readers, have banned all comments during major news events. That's what
happened in April at The Roanoke Times in Virginia, which shut down a message board it had set up to discuss the deadly shootings at Virginia Tech.
Initial comments were "very civil," says online
editor John Jackson, but they quickly turned ugly. "All of a sudden, we
started noticing the nastier comments."
He can't recall exactly what they said but
remembers they were laced with profanity. "It was really a no-brainer
decision to take it down because it really crossed the line so
terribly," Jackson says.
At The Orange County Register,
editors had to remind readers that the rules of discussion required
civil conversation after several nasty and often profane comments were
posted in response to a March story about an obese woman who had given
birth to a baby she hadn't known she was carrying.
The newspaper now removes a comment after two —
rather than three — complaints from readers. It also uses trained
retirees to monitor the boards, says deputy website editor Jeff Light.
Although many of the comments were "horrible and
unacceptable," Light says such feedback from readers — even when it's
rude — can be enlightening to journalists.
"I was looking at it and said, 'Oh look, these
people are enraged by the way we had looked at the story.'
Unfortunately that was all lost because their rage was so ugly and
inarticulate. But I still think there was value in there. Not everybody
sees things the way a middle-of-the-road, liberal newspaper reporter
sees things. They see things in many different ways, and that's why we
have comments."
The Sacramento Bee recently decided to do away with anonymous comments and requires readers to use their real names.
Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School
of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University, says that is
the least newspapers should do. "If you want enlightened conversations
on your site, people have to use their real names," he says, adding
that news sites also should clearly differentiate comments from
stories.
USA TODAY, which launched comments boards in
March, requires people to register and provide a valid e-mail address
before they are allowed to post comments. The newspaper also uses
filters to catch profanity in postings and asks readers to report
abuse. Repeat offenders may be blocked from posting on the site.
"We're in the infancy of this," says USA TODAY executive editor Kinsey Wilson.
"The hope is the intelligence of the crowd will
help inform the news in the long run. Everybody's experimenting with
this and trying to find how to make it more valuable, how to keep it
civil and how to keep it more constructive."
But sometimes, as Newmark says, people go a
little crazy. On the Web, writing under pseudonyms can allow people to
feel free to say whatever they want with little fear of retribution,
says Judith Martin, who writes the syndicated Miss Manners column.
Anonymity on the Internet is relative, however.
People who use pseudonyms while posting on
websites actually may be trackable through their Internet Protocol
address, a unique designation that allows computers to communicate with
others on the Internet. Still, most sites won't try to track someone
unless there's a legal reason, such as a subpoena.
Even when people use their real names, they
don't always feel the ramifications of their words: The online world
puts blinders on us.
"Without seeing the immediate consequences of
rudeness on the recipient's face or in their voice, it is easier to
cross boundaries," says Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the
Digital Future at the University of Southern California's Annenberg
School for Communication.
People "forget that there are real people reading what they write," Newmark says.
This month, several people, some of them anonymous, went to great pains to post online spoilers of the new Harry Potter book before it was released.
Some said they did so because they hated Potter author J.K. Rowling's books and the publicity they generate. Others did it for kicks.
"It was fun for myself at the expense of others," one 17-year-old from Pittsburgh said when contacted by USA TODAY.
A 'frightening' level of hate
The spoilers were irritating, but they were harmless compared with some of the personal attacks that have popped up on blogs.
Kathy Sierra, an author and computer-game developer from Denver, kept a popular blog about designing software.
But after receiving a series of sexually graphic
and threatening posts this year, including death threats and a picture
of her neck next to a noose, Sierra was so shaken she suspended writing
the blog in March. She also canceled a public appearance, saying she
was afraid to leave home.
As a longtime blogger, she says, she had
confronted "trolls," people who intentionally write provocative things
to spark a reaction. But these threats "crossed the line to be
frightening."
"Even if the chances are really low that it will
carry over into real life, it's not worth the risk. It's frightening
that people hate just based on visibility. There's a lot of hate out
there. Why? Nobody really knows."
She did call local police but didn't have enough
evidence to pursue charges. The poster was anonymous and, as she says,
"any halfway decent hacker can make themselves undiscoverable."
'People come out swinging'
Perhaps the Internet simply is reflecting an
increasing rudeness in everyday life as displayed on talk radio, TV
talk shows and in political discourse.
"Society has gotten very abrasive," Martin says. "In the slightest altercation, people come out swinging and swearing."
But the online world is markedly different from
the offline one, Martin says. In real life, people have learned there
are rules they dare not break. For instance, racism is now considered
intolerable, she says, pointing out that radio shock jock Don Imus was
fired in April for a racist comment about the Rutgers women's
basketball team.
Online, people feel free to express all sorts of
otherwise socially unacceptable thoughts — often without repercussions.
"Civilization is about thinking before you express everything," Martin
says.
She and others say online nastiness should be
reined in. "When people find they are held accountable for what they
say or write, then they tend to want to restrain themselves," she says.
Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, a technology
book publisher in Sebastopol, Calif., responded to the threats to his
friend Sierra by calling for a code of conduct for blogs. He has urged
bloggers to ban anonymous comments and to delete threatening or
libelous comments.
"There is a kind of ethic on the Internet that
says it's OK to be abusive, or to have to tolerate it, in the interest
of free speech," O'Reilly says. "It's a mistake."
Recently, O'Reilly Media has "shifted our focus
from a code of conduct to developing technology that will allow blog
readers to participate in moderating comments," says O'Reilly
spokeswoman Sara Winge. "We think that's more likely to get widely
adopted than a written code that requires agreement from bloggers."
Saffo agrees the solution should be
technological, "where the network becomes the nanny," he says. "My
concern is that this is not a self-correcting phenomenon. The bad will
drive out the good."
On YouTube, video posters can control who sees
their work and who can comment on it. They can keep videos private,
allowing only invited guests to see them. They also can moderate or
shut down comments on public videos.
Brodack leaves her comment board alone because she values feedback and "to just remove things would be an endless battle."
She has decided the best thing to do is simply ignore the nastiness as much as possible.
"I get things like death threats or, 'If I ever
see you I'm going to kill you,' " Brodack says. "There is always foul
language included. It's very immature. For every 20 positive comments,
I get one negative one. … I just kind of ignore them. It's the same
thing over and over. It's a waste of time, truthfully."
In preparation for news stories tonight and tomorrow, the news department handed me a copy of the Farmers Branch city council agenda for Monday night. The following item is listed for discussion in the executive session.
"E.2 Discuss pending and contemplated litigation - Texas Government Code Section 55.071 (1): Consult with city attorney on proposed ordinances, resolutions, policies and other issues related to English language proclamation, illegal immigration, business licensing and rental licensing."
According to Texas law, the city council members are allowed to discuss this issue behind closed doors to get legal advice from the city attorney. However, if you were the attorney or if you were allowed into that discussion, what would you say?
What kind of advice would you give the Farmers Branch council members on possibly being the first Texas city to approve an ordinance that is against illegal immigration?
Would this sort of ordinance make the town racist as some Hispanic groups argue?
UPDATE: Farmers Branch city council member Tim O'Hare will be live on FOX 4's News at 9. In addition to the questions above, what questions or comments do you have for O'Hare?
Maybe I watch too much science fiction and too many bad Hollywood movies, but just imagine would the bad guys would do with an invisibility cloak. Is there really a need for this technology?
********
Scientists ponder invisibility cloak
By ANDREW BRIDGES
Associated Press
Fri May 26, 7:16 PM ET
Imagine an invisibility cloak that works just like the one Harry Potter inherited from his father. Researchers in England and the United States think they know how to do that. They are laying out the blueprint and calling for help in developing the exotic materials needed to build a cloak.
The keys are special manmade materials, unlike any in nature or the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. These materials are intended to steer light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation around an object, rendering it as invisible as something tucked into a hole in space.
"Is it science fiction? Well, it's theory and that already is not science fiction. It's theoretically possible to do all these Harry Potter things, but what's standing in the way is our engineering capabilities," said John Pendry, a physicist at the Imperial College London.
Read more at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060526/ap_on_sc/invisibili
ty_cloak;_ylt=Av4V5PA1TLGsunah68emoiUPLBIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA
5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
