Comments on: Michigan’s MySpace sex offenders

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 01:47:58 +0000

It’s called “spin.” The media “spins” these stories in whatever way will secure ratings and/or readership, both now and in the future. The media feeds on things like this to survive, but in a world where information is exchanged faster and more freely, the truth can be exposed faster and more accurately than ever–especially surrounding things that SOMEONE doesn’t want anyone else to figure out.

The X-Files’ little slogan “The truth is out there” has never applied more readily to real life than now.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 01:42:03 +0000

Unlike ICQ and Livejournal, many older Internet applications are distributed: e-mail, Usenet, DNS. You can choose your e-mail provider, the same applies to Jabber. So, there is no real need to have a centralized social networking application; it’s just no one is ready to build one yet.

A *distributed* system that would replace MySpace and Facebook is not impossible to build. P2P systems for file sharing exist and are very powerful, despite MAFIAA’s efforts, why not a distributed Facebook or MySpace?

Of course, the gov’ts do not want people’s self-expression they cannot control.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 01:32:06 +0000

“cadillacwhore, thisloveisunbreakable, felonious_thoughts and pimpin_in_the_trans_am.”

FELONIOUS_THOUGHTS ?! >how transparent can THAT be?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 01:29:43 +0000

n/t

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:36:11 +0000

Interesting comment, and right on target. I couldn’t have written it better myself.

I just started an ongoing page on my site especially about these problems in reporting, entitled “How YOU Are Being Manipulated: Detailing How Politicians and Media Groups Subtly And Deceptively Change Your Thinking”

It can be found at http://angryoffender.com/subtle_manipulation.html

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:33:40 +0000

It’s interesting how, throughout all of these “MySpace sex offenders” stories out there, no one ever acknowledges that the majority of sex offenders out there are using MySpace for legitimate purposes, such as meeting old high school buds or doing social networking for business purposes. Some of them are on probation with specific orders to not use the Internet, not use a computer, or not use “social networking sites,” but that’s not how it is for the vast majority.

The assumption that is being made here is that “sex offender” is a label that automatically means “this person will rape all your chlidren Real Soon Now.” It’s an implication of everything that isn’t explicitly stated, but the media gets away with implying a lie like this because they are judged solely on the technical truth or falsehood of what they say, ignoring all of the underlying implications to the media consumer.

In other words, they can lie to you without lying to you–and get away with it.