When the 'long tail' gets it wrong
One of the benefits of having friends who are more technically literate than I am is that I can learn exciting new phrases like 'short head' and 'long tail.' But I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to believing that everything shiny and new will redefine how we do things.
For example, not long ago I was chatting with good friend Fang about social media contributions from the 'long tail', which is basically 'the great unwashed' of a population, while the 'short head' is the term used to define the small number of leaders in a population. That's a pretty woofy description so see Wikipedia for a more accurate description of 'short head' and 'long tail.' My use of 'long tail' in this context relates to social networking communications like blogging.
I wondered how we as consumers and users of information from a broad source of authors who blog, tweet and upload videos can be comfortable that the information is correct. The answer was that the long tail is self-policing and that inaccuracies are quickly found-out and corrected.
As I do, I was listening to a podcast while in my workshop progressing my current art project and an interesting segment came-up from the July 28th National Public Radio (NPR) 'Technology Podcast'. One of the segments on this podcast related to an African-American woman in Georgia named Shirley Sherrod who had been fired from her job as a State Director for the United States Department of Agriculture.
Sherrod was fired from her job because of complaints about a speech she made that appeared to include racist comments. However, what actually happened was a conservative blogger called Andrew Breitbart uploaded to YouTube an edited version of Shirley Sherrod's March 2010 speech which made her appear to be a racist when recalling her conversation with a white farmer in 1986 who faced losing his farm.
Conservative Fox News picked-up the story from Brietbart's post, and in very short time the outraged mob was calling for her resignation. The people demanding her resignation included the NAACP, and her then employer the USDA. She did resign due to the harassment she was subjected to. Once a topical or controversial issue gets promoted on the Internet, whether it is true or not, it can spread far and wide with incredible speed. A video clip of a government employee making what seems to be racist comments would have attracted a lot of attention.
When the 43 minute long unedited version of her speech was seen it was apparent that Breitbart's 2'38" version uploaded to YouTube was edited to change the context of Sherrod's speech and make her appear to be a racist. After the unedited version of the speech was made available Sherrod was cleared of the racism charges, apologies were made to her, her old job was offered back to her, and even President Obama called her about the issue.
The white farmer she spoke of from that 1986 conversation credited Sherrod for helping save his farm. At the time she worked for a public advocacy firm and gave him valuable assistance. The farmer stated that at no time did he feel Sherrod was a racist.
For more detail about this sad saga see Wikipedia.
To me this is a cautionary tale about accepting anything from the Internet at face value without applying critical review of it. Of course people who blog don't always represent the truth in their posts, and YouTube is not immune from manipulation. But recognising the truth isn't always easy.
Simply because a post, tweet or video doesn't originate from a biased, manipulative old media organisation doesn't make it pure and accurate. We can be manipulated and taken just as easily in the web 2.0 and social media worlds as we can with the old media model. The facts did emerge that Sherrod wasn't a racist but not before she faced harassment and organisational pressure that forced her to leave her job.
The importance to check facts before jumping to a conclusion still exists even today. I'm reminded of my Dad saying, 'you can't always trust what you read in the newspaper' and if he would certainly say that about information found on the Internet.
For example, not long ago I was chatting with good friend Fang about social media contributions from the 'long tail', which is basically 'the great unwashed' of a population, while the 'short head' is the term used to define the small number of leaders in a population. That's a pretty woofy description so see Wikipedia for a more accurate description of 'short head' and 'long tail.' My use of 'long tail' in this context relates to social networking communications like blogging.
I wondered how we as consumers and users of information from a broad source of authors who blog, tweet and upload videos can be comfortable that the information is correct. The answer was that the long tail is self-policing and that inaccuracies are quickly found-out and corrected.
As I do, I was listening to a podcast while in my workshop progressing my current art project and an interesting segment came-up from the July 28th National Public Radio (NPR) 'Technology Podcast'. One of the segments on this podcast related to an African-American woman in Georgia named Shirley Sherrod who had been fired from her job as a State Director for the United States Department of Agriculture.
Sherrod was fired from her job because of complaints about a speech she made that appeared to include racist comments. However, what actually happened was a conservative blogger called Andrew Breitbart uploaded to YouTube an edited version of Shirley Sherrod's March 2010 speech which made her appear to be a racist when recalling her conversation with a white farmer in 1986 who faced losing his farm.
Conservative Fox News picked-up the story from Brietbart's post, and in very short time the outraged mob was calling for her resignation. The people demanding her resignation included the NAACP, and her then employer the USDA. She did resign due to the harassment she was subjected to. Once a topical or controversial issue gets promoted on the Internet, whether it is true or not, it can spread far and wide with incredible speed. A video clip of a government employee making what seems to be racist comments would have attracted a lot of attention.
When the 43 minute long unedited version of her speech was seen it was apparent that Breitbart's 2'38" version uploaded to YouTube was edited to change the context of Sherrod's speech and make her appear to be a racist. After the unedited version of the speech was made available Sherrod was cleared of the racism charges, apologies were made to her, her old job was offered back to her, and even President Obama called her about the issue.
The white farmer she spoke of from that 1986 conversation credited Sherrod for helping save his farm. At the time she worked for a public advocacy firm and gave him valuable assistance. The farmer stated that at no time did he feel Sherrod was a racist.
For more detail about this sad saga see Wikipedia.
To me this is a cautionary tale about accepting anything from the Internet at face value without applying critical review of it. Of course people who blog don't always represent the truth in their posts, and YouTube is not immune from manipulation. But recognising the truth isn't always easy.
Simply because a post, tweet or video doesn't originate from a biased, manipulative old media organisation doesn't make it pure and accurate. We can be manipulated and taken just as easily in the web 2.0 and social media worlds as we can with the old media model. The facts did emerge that Sherrod wasn't a racist but not before she faced harassment and organisational pressure that forced her to leave her job.
The importance to check facts before jumping to a conclusion still exists even today. I'm reminded of my Dad saying, 'you can't always trust what you read in the newspaper' and if he would certainly say that about information found on the Internet.
posted by Rick's Rambles at 8:45 pm
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