How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
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Re: How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
#2Truth is such a slippery concept. How easy it was to create by a school kid, and how organically it grew over time despite being entirely made up. Imagine how much better people with professional tools and desire can generate much more harmful information than fake Henry Winkler appearances.
Re: How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
#3This seems like an interesting article. However, the large advertisement on the screen covering the entire viewport with no 'close' button makes reading it a real challenge.
Re: How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
#4I can't help but read this like:
Let me show you how dangerous sidewalks are
by telling you the story about the time I
went for a walk while swinging a spiked bat
at every passer by. It was great fun, but it
demonstrates why sidewalks are dangerous.Re: How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
#5So, you lied, but it's someone else's fault?
After all, what kind of person would intentionally sow lies about Street Sharks across the internet?
Well, not a good one.
Re: How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
#6I know this is pitched as an experiment about the internet, but I think it is an even more telling experiment about the malleability of human memory.
Re: How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
#7I can't help but read this like: Let me show you how dangerous sidewalks are by telling you the story about the time I went for a walk while swinging a spiked bat at every passer by. It was great fun, but it demonstrates why sidewalks are dangerous.
And considering the respectable sources have since corrected his misinformation, tack on a: "That neighborhood is now better policed, but still, you never know!"
Re: How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
#8I can't help but read this like: Let me show you how dangerous sidewalks are by telling you the story about the time I went for a walk while swinging a spiked bat at every passer by. It was great fun, but it demonstrates why sidewalks are dangerous.
How many articles have had the premise "You can't trust wikipedia, because it's full of lies! Why, just look at this handful of lies I've put on there!"
Re: How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
#9I can't help but read this like: Let me show you how dangerous sidewalks are by telling you the story about the time I went for a walk while swinging a spiked bat at every passer by. It was great fun, but it demonstrates why sidewalks are dangerous.
No. It's more like he was swinging a foam bat and is warning us how easy it would be for someone more malicious to swing a spiked bat.
Seriously, I don't really care if some teenager creates a non-sense fanfic world on poorly monitored sites.
However, it is noteworthy how the utter lack of quality control on so many Internet properties can propagate falsehoods.
This undermines the claim that the Internet was supposed to be this "Information Superhighway" (lol, remember that term?) leading to a more informed society.
This just hasn't panned out the way the tech utopians of the 90s thought it would. What they failed to foresee is that the abundance of information can lead to just as much ignorance as the lack of information.
Re: How I turned “Street Sharks” into an online social experiment
#10I can't help but read this like: Let me show you how dangerous sidewalks are by telling you the story about the time I went for a walk while swinging a spiked bat at every passer by. It was great fun, but it demonstrates why sidewalks are dangerous.
I see what you're getting at. I'm reminded of the discussion and debate around the Rosenhan experiment[0].
That said, I think your analogy isn't quite on point. The noteworthy thing here isn't just that it's possible to lie on the internet -- people have clearly been doing that for a while. What's interesting here is that those lies, while not at the time intended as an experiment, have still demonstrated how perniciously they can become a part of what is becoming our collective memory and record of truth.
We already know that our memories are malleable, fuzzy, adaptive, and often downright wrong. It's interesting to see how this relates to the possibility that lies, or untruths, take on a life of their own online, and can serve to mold our own recollections.