The Digital Citizen Awakens!

[Luis Antonio]

I was reading this article from BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/...gy/4566712.stm

And thought about sharing.

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly that we're now more than ever sharing information and carrying information at enormous speeds and with never seen efficiency. I think: How will it influenciate us and our kids? I'm kinda afraid of looking like paranoic here, but wont it open a place for more cameras and vigilance on the streets seeing that this information may help us overcome problems with day after day life?

Any thoughts? Conspiracies? Inspirations? Movies of bombings to share?

[Magrus]

It's a good thing IMHO. It makes the governments think before producing false news if the people have their own recordings of what happened. It really is hard to deny something happening the way it happened if a few people record it all and send copies to new stations.

Besides, too many people are sheltered, and are oblivious to the reality of the world around them. Unfortunately, bad things happen. Violence is real, death is real, pain is real. Everyone experiences all of those in their lives, and if someone is under the impression it will and can never occur to them, they will be at a loss for what to do later in life when it does happen.

[fable]

Welcome to the age of digital misinformation, where you can truly read newspapers and exchange a host of falsified facts with others of like mind, developing what the anthropologist Levi-Strauss referred to as "bubble cultures." I see this as a massive opportunity to spread fraud and even casual misstatements which are accepted.

[Luis Antonio]

Interesting thing, Fable, but many sources of data are not more efficient at finding more precise information? I mean, before we had to trust only on the press people for info, now we can receive "shots" of info from everyone every time and we may choose wether to believe in them or not.

[Magrus]

That would be a point I had not considered. A good one too, what with the success of those horrid magazines full of nonsense, I can imagine what may come up if a person skilled with graphics spends the time and energy to make a realistic fake.

[Luis Antonio]

Yes, the thing is that people are trying to forge truths all the time with this "I'm the newspaper" thing that we see on blogging, or on live cams, or on rants all around the internet.

[Magrus]

The way I look at it, any tool can be used for good or bad things. If I have a pen, I can use it to write a book, or write something of importance which may save lives. I can also use it to hurt someone by stabbing them with it. The pen in and of itself is neither good or bad. The prevalence of such technology isn't bad or good, it simply is. How people use it is a different story.