Green Room - Week 38 - Day 1

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

The results last night sent shockwaves through the internet: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/838692.html

Well, OK, maybe not "shockwaves", but people were sad about it.

The, of course, the new topic came and people were even more sad about that! ;) http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/838956.html

Or at least equally sad.

You also had questions. I have answers! Let's see if we can have them make a belated Valentines Day love connection!!!

- "I want to know which one was me" - Referencing the announcement that I made that I would identify who I was talking about from that infamous post: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/837598.html

I will let you know *when you are eliminated*. I am giving you the choice if you want to do that in private, where we can talk a little more freely (although I've been having a problem with people forwarding private messages lately, so my policy on what I do and don't talk about may need to change in the near future)

If you *are not* eliminated (aka "you win") that still counts as you no longer being in the competition. :)

- "Who can be a champion?" "Do they need to have a Livejournal?" "What is the best way to post their entry?"

Anyone you know can be your Champion. Just tie your favor on them and send them out to joust!
They don't *have* to have a Livejournal any more than any contestant *has* to have a Livejournal - but as people who have played earlier this season know, it certainly helps.
If they don't already have one, they should still be pretty easy to set up. Heck, they can set one up under their FB, Twitter or Open Access ID!
The best way for them to post their entry is in their space. If you are absolutely desperate, they can sent it to you and you can post it.

But let me answer the next question as well and it may clear up a few more questions. That question being "You said 'ideally' they should be someone who hasn't played this season of Idol - is that a strict rule that they shouldn't have played, or just a suggestion?"

My answer to that is to let you know why I introduced the Champions concept a couple years ago.

I think the LJ Idol needs to be someone who can inspire people and *make them want to get involved*. Not just to be better writers, but to be involved in Idol itself! :)

With the Champions, you are bringing someone new to the table, someone who you think is strong enough to defend your position in the game. But also someone that you think will enjoy their (limited) experience.

Ideally, it's a recruitment tool. :) They post their entries in *their* space and suddenly Idol is introduced to a whole group of people who may not have been aware of what was going on.

So, yes, *ideally* I'd like for it to be someone new - and ideally, I'd like for it to be in their own space. Because that creates a greater chance for people to get intrigued that doesn't exist when folks already know what is going on.

Granted, I know that it isn't always possible - so if you do have to grab someone who played this season, I get it. I'd just prefer if you could grab someone who could be dragged into our world, a new voice to enjoy.

***

Cynthia was mentioning an article last night, but unfortunately she forgot to send it to me. It was about various people who have posted something stupid online and ended up losing their jobs when the comment when viral and everyone started chiming in, without knowing the context. (There are plenty of ass-hats out there who are outright spreading hate - but there are also the ones who seem to be caught on a "slow news day" and end up in the cross-fire... and of course the people working toward social justice who end up in the cross-fires of those who would rather *not* have it.)

It led to an interesting conversation about the importance of people out there working for social justice, but how easily things can get out of control and become a mob in the process. I know I've seen a few, when someone posts something stupid and the world goes after them. There are people on every side of every issues, who seem like the folks who would have gone out to the public executions.

Does the click-bait/retweet culture encourage this sort of thing, or only reflect what was already there?

Comments

[talon.livejournal.com]

Dipping into legalities for a bit here: first, as dmousey points out, this isn't really about the first amendment, which only applies to government action. We live in an era where the speech that we are talking about exists purely on a private platform — Facebook/Twitter/Google are under no obligations whatsoever to guarantee your speech, and can make decisions on what to take down or allow purely at their will, and I don't think there will be any restrictions on them anytime soon, if ever, at least in the US.

Public shaming is definitely something that's magnified by technology, but I don't think it's really a solvable issue at this point; I think future generations will simply have to adapt, much as they will have to adapt to the fact that the internet never forgets anything. There are rearguard actions (like the European Right to Be Forgotten attempt), but I find those unlikely to succeed in the long term, simply because the internet has made access to the information too ubiquitous to be easily censored or removed.

Sociologically, I think the answer is that we will adapt to these new changes in time. People are still coming to grips with the fact that what they put out there will be enshrined and referenced forever, but eventually, a generation will grow up never knowing anything else, and they will modify their conduct to respond to that — or they won't have to, because everyone will have something stupid that they did that will be Googleable and people will stop caring about it as much as they do now. With regards to harassment and death threats, I think that's also an element of the internet that law enforcement will respond to better in the future — real and credible threats are always punishable by law, and as threats move from realspace into cyberspace, prosecution of those threats will move too.

Will the witch hunts continue? Almost certainly — these online platforms will always be one where you can easily point out how right you are by pointing out how egregiously wrong someone else is, without any harm to yourself. I don't think that'll change, unless the companies start instituting requirements for real names, for example (but there's a large benefit to anonymous speech, too). But in some ways, these public shamings do put others on notice that societally, some behavior won't be tolerated. They don't always get the right people or are based on the right reasons, but the message itself is one of reinforcing a norm that I think most would agree with.

[ryl.livejournal.com]

Sociologically, I think the answer is that we will adapt to these new changes in time. People are still coming to grips with the fact that what they put out there will be enshrined and referenced forever, but eventually, a generation will grow up never knowing anything else, and they will modify their conduct to respond to that — or they won't have to, because everyone will have something stupid that they did that will be Googleable and people will stop caring about it as much as they do now

One of Arthur C. Clarke's last books, The Light of Other Days (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days), covers a societal change similar to what you're talking about. Someone develops a stable wormhole which allows people to look into the past and present and eventually destroys the whole concept of personal privacy. The people who grew up before this discovery get all up in arms about that, but the younger generations are completely okay with it and eventually society adapts to it. We can see this in action now. These are interesting times.