snowball fight – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Philly City Council Members Want To Sue Facebook And Twitter Over Flash Mob Snowball Fight

from the section-230 dept

And here we go again. Apparently there was recently a “flash mob” snowball fight in Philadephia that got a bit out of control, resulting in a “rampage” through a Macy’s department store. Nobody was hurt, but 16 people were arrested. So how are Philly officials dealing with it? They’re threatening to sue Twitter and Facebook. Seriously. Two city council members say that those companies deserve some of the blame and a lawsuit is an option:

“While [the kids] certainly owe this city an apology and deserve to be punished under the fullest extent of the law, we believe that social media outlets should also bear some of the blame.” The letter, written by council members Frank DiCicco and James F. Kenney, explains that this is the second such time a band of mischievous teens has formed via social media and went on to destroy property. “We believe that the lack of monitoring of these sites allows for mass, organized riots to occur.”

Hopefully someone explains to these two council members that both sites are certainly protected from liability under Section 230 of the CDA. But, more importantly, beyond just invoking those safe harbors, can someone explain to them how silly it is to blame a communication tool for how it’s used? Do they want to sue the phone company when criminals use phones to plan their crimes? Do they threaten to sue the car companies when a car is used in a crime? Furthermore, if their complaint is that these sites failed to “monitor” what people were planning, then isn’t the city council actually even more to blame? The content of Twitter is available to the public, and these days much of Facebook is as well (and info on such a flashmob would almost certainly be public). Then shouldn’t Philadelphia officials be aware of what’s being planned in their own city? Based on the reasoning of DiCicco and Kenney, perhaps they should be suing themselves for failing to monitor what kids in their city were planning on some very public forums.

Filed Under: city council, flash mob, frank dicicco, james f. kenney, liability, philadelphia, section 230, snowball fight
Companies: facebook, twitter

Washington Post Reporters Believes Bogus Police Report Over Own Editorial Aide Eye Witness And Photographic & Video Evidence

from the this-is-why-no-one-trusts-the-press dept

Post updated to clarify that it was an editorial aide, rather than an editor who witnessed things

Via Jay Rosen we learn of the absolutely bizarre story of how a Washington Post editorial aide witnessed an altercation involving an off-duty police officer who pulled his gun on people in a snowball fight — and the eventual Washington Post writeup on the story which completely ignored the eyewitness account of its editorial aide in favor of the claim by the police that the gun wasn’t drawn. Yes, a Washington Post staffer happened to have been on the scene and witnessed the whole thing. He called it in and told a reporter about it — but the reporter simply ignored the guy’s account. As Jay Rosen notes: “Who you gonna believe? The police department or your own staffer’s lying eyes?” Even worse, by the time the Washington Post put out its report, there was already photographic evidence of the drawn gun posted online, along with a video where the cop admits to pulling the gun.

Later on, the Washington Post did “update” its report, mentioning the online evidence, but waited for quite some time before finally linking to the video (and never linked to the photos). As the Washington City Paper notes about this, it’s in part due to very old school media thinking:

Yet the reason why the Post screwed this up is that they all have linkophobia. If you link to an outlet—such as, God forbid, the Washington City Paper—you’ve lost. You got scooped and all your colleagues are going to look down on you. Linking is a huge sign of weakness—you just can’t do it. Far better to, like, call a top police official, buy his version of events, and just place it in a post, regardless of the contradicting evidence that’s already posted elsewhere.

Take a close look at that 10:20 update on the maybe-gun-pulling cop: “The plainclothes D.C. police detective may have unholstered his pistol during the confrontation with participants in the huge snowball fight, based on video and photos posted on the Internet.”

Bold and italics are mine. They’re mine because this is the most cowardly, selfish, arrogant news conduct out there today. What the fuck is “video and photos posted on the Internet”? How does that help readers? It’s as if I can go to www.internet.com, and there, on the first screen, will be the video and photos of the snowball fight and the maybe-gun-wielding cop. “Posted on the Internet” would be acceptable if this were 1997.

The reporters used this hazy phrasing because they were too chicken-shit to do something that we all have learned to do over the past, say, decade or more. And that’s to link to competitors and acknowledge their contributions to stories.

Remember, this is the Washington Post, that recently had a column claiming that a blog linking to a Washington Post story (multiple times) had ripped off the Washington Post. So, perhaps that explains why the Washington Post refused to link to others who had more accurate takes on the story. It didn’t want to “rip them off,” and preferred to get the story wrong, even though it employed an eye witness.

So where are all those reporters who insist that the professional press is needed because they get this stuff right, while it’s the upstarts that rush to post false claims?

Filed Under: eye witnesses, journalism, linking, reporting, snowball fight, washington dc
Companies: washington post