You may be forgiven for thinking I'm a fan of social media, and, in particular, Twitter. Headlines like "Twitter: the future of news" and "Twitter, the best thing since the invention of the thong" may have given the misleading impression I thought Twitter was a good thing. In which case I apologize.
The truth is I think Twitter is bumping up against its limits. It's possibly just a speed bump, but it's a bump nonetheless.
The problem, as I see it, is that we thought social media would scale. In other words, we thought the more people got involved, the more the crowd would impose its wisdom.
We saw it happen in the past with Wikipedia, for example, which has a benign presence because it (usually and eventually) forces out the rubbish and allows good sense and quality to take over. But it doesn't always work.
Your comments:
Interesting point of view, especially regarding the *bump' and the epidemic of noise. To a large extent I agree. Forgive me for being naive, but it seems in this respect Twitter is more a reflection of the general ignorance and stupidity that can be found off line, and in the news media, than an intrinsically doomed social media. So any point getting over the bump? And if so, how?
Where the madness comes in is with the competitive spirit that now pervades Twitter as tweeters vie to amass huge numbers of followers, and will stop at nothing to do so. Not that this is an exclusively American phenomena but it is largely in the US this has started, so it is interesting how a lot of the grossest misinformation and panic on H1N1 has also originated from this hugely powerful, massively online, yet naive country.
Twitter has become a commercial and political arena of acquisition. Yet even in the middle of this, people still form their own core groups and rapidly, perhaps instinctively, set up unwritten codes of conversation and information sharing, with the private DM feature often consolidating a certain bond of trust. But then again, perhaps in a little while we will all get bored with it...
Rio Helmi
The sad fact is that there will always be the ignorant ones, the stupid ones, and then the pathetic ones who think everything can be joked about and think of deception as a sort of victory over the ghosts they fight. At least until societies decide otherwise.
And I do love how Wikipedia challenges you to re-verify and stand up for the information you are providing. Hence, eventually, only those who actually have something of value to share will see their content persist.
Can you control Twitter in this way? I do not think you could, but even if you could, is it wise for Twitter's benefit at least? That would be the case when you have a good number of loud voices in each society actually seeking the cream of the crop when it comes to responsible news and truthful information.
Until then, it falls down to people such as yourself pointing out these issues, and also to the wit and wisdom of the individual.
J. Haidar
Revoked church permit -- May 11, p. 1
Citing opposition from Muslim residents, the mayor of Depok recently revoked the building permit for the planned HKBP church in Depok. What do you think about the decision?
Your comments:
Just go to any western country, Europe or the US. You will see that any muslim community will be allowed to build their house of worship without any resistance from any party.
That's what is called tolerance. It's a basic principle in any religion. The argument about Christianization doesn't make any sense.
Any muslim who's faithful to his religion and believes his or her religion is the right one, shouldn't be afraid of being "christianized'.....Fear is only in the heart of the unfaithful.
The Mayor of Depok should go to North Sulawesi and learn from mayors over there. There, Muslims help Christians build churches and Christians help Muslims build mosques.....next to each other. Hand in hand...Peacefully.
Bob Tawa
There are many communities in Jakarta where 70 percent of the residents are not Muslim. Of course my opinion only passed through my brain for a few seconds, you can play with the percentages, but the basic idea is not a bad one.
I know mosques start to become "noisy" for non-Muslims at 4.30 a.m. and churches are usually loud on Sunday. We all disturb one another. So why not keep our noise to ourselves? Stop fighting and Christians like you, stop being so sensitive.
Muslimah
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