Lets talk: Burden of evidence
London 1/3 2016
Time to blow the lid off this fucker. There's something that's been bugging me for a time now, even though I am not entirely sure when it began. Because as great as the internet is, It is clear that during the last 10 years or so, our attention span to things have gone from bad to worse. I found myself yesterday opening a video, 5 minutes long, and I shut it down because it was too long. I am not sure what I am so stressed about, laying in my bed at 2 am, that I can't spare 5 minutes of my time.
The truth is, that just by writing these long posts, I probably lose about 75-90% of the people even opening my blog. It is just too long for somone to bother reading through. If you are still here, hello and thank you for giving me a moment of your not so precious time. You are decent.
The truth is, that just by writing these long posts, I probably lose about 75-90% of the people even opening my blog. It is just too long for somone to bother reading through. If you are still here, hello and thank you for giving me a moment of your not so precious time. You are decent.
The real problem that I have with this, are people not fact checking stuff before they share it. Ignorance in privacy is not really an issue, as no people come to harm. However, this is the age of social media after all. Large parts of our social lives, are dependent on the liking and sharing of different things, weither that is openly on facebook/twitter or to a closed group of friends via your favourite chatting service (Lets face it, its probably facebook. If you say Twitter Direct messages, you are either a lier or a loner.). With the sharing of media increasing in both freqency and speed, we have a serious gap in knowledge as to what can be considered reliable sources. Yes this is a continuation of that one class in school that you really didn't care about, fun right.
Not a day goes by that I don't see somone posting a link with either a misleading title, or a highly questionable source. In most cases these people have not even bothered reading the article that they just shared, but the sensationalist titles, reinforces their own views on life (That is an issue in itself. Echo chambers is something I will come back to in a separate post.) and are therefore deemed ok. In some ways this has become the modern version of the old saying "making a hen out of a feather".
Not a day goes by that I don't see somone posting a link with either a misleading title, or a highly questionable source. In most cases these people have not even bothered reading the article that they just shared, but the sensationalist titles, reinforces their own views on life (That is an issue in itself. Echo chambers is something I will come back to in a separate post.) and are therefore deemed ok. In some ways this has become the modern version of the old saying "making a hen out of a feather".
The problem is that theres a severe lack of reliable sources out there anymore. Many news outlets are working on a buzzfeed model nowadays, where they want as many clicks as possible, but with lacking content. The real way to getting around this is to crosscheck with different sources, maybe ask somone else who knows more about this than you and, oh "You won't believe what this cat did LOL" that sounds interesting. And that's where most people just, give up.
The reason why I'm writing this right now however, is because of something that has arisen as a bi-product of this. I have had this in the back of my head for some time, but what really got me going was the Kesha vs Sony/Dr Luke. For those who are unaware of the situation, Kesha is accusing Dr.Luke for raping and drugging her, and wants out of her contract with Sony as a way of getting away from the fear of this happening again. Sony refused this agreement, and this has caused a major backlash in the last few weeks, where eveyone and their mothers has weighed in on this and worked hard to stop the contract.
Okay, here is my problem with the way this has been treated in social media. Without even touching the fact that Sony released a statement 4 days ago stating that "Sony is doing everything it can to support the artist in these circumstances, but is legally unable to terminate the contract to which it is not a party.", essentially making this raid on Sony a big issue, the way our system of justice is built is on Legal Burden of Proof.
When these news really hit off, we saw pictures of Kesha crying in the courtroom. These images became the fuse on the powderkeg and people quickly spread them all over. "Would this face lie?!" That is the comment that I really can not let go off.
It is highly possible that Kesha is 100% true in this, and there is no way for me to know that(Plus it would be more opinion based, and opinion has no place in justice). But this is where my first talking point and this one join. We can not, let feelings come in the way of our legal system. I see it way too often in these cases, where a accused person gets completely torn apart by the Social communities before even being convicted. If there is enough evidence, justice will have its way. But when people start making up their own minds about cases before the judgement has fallen, we have a potentially huge problem on our hands. Yes, all these campaigns supporting Kesha, will raise awareness of her troubles, but it will also have the potential to sway the court. If the integrity of the court is changed on the basis of mob rule, we are shaking the foundations of modern democracy.
It is highly possible that Kesha is 100% true in this, and there is no way for me to know that(Plus it would be more opinion based, and opinion has no place in justice). But this is where my first talking point and this one join. We can not, let feelings come in the way of our legal system. I see it way too often in these cases, where a accused person gets completely torn apart by the Social communities before even being convicted. If there is enough evidence, justice will have its way. But when people start making up their own minds about cases before the judgement has fallen, we have a potentially huge problem on our hands. Yes, all these campaigns supporting Kesha, will raise awareness of her troubles, but it will also have the potential to sway the court. If the integrity of the court is changed on the basis of mob rule, we are shaking the foundations of modern democracy.
Yes I know, this is all a bit overdramatic, as per ususal. But in all seriousness, I do feel as if this is a bigger issue than we all understand.
Still with me? Maybe skipped here from the end because you wanted to see how the post ended? Well stop being a lazy fuck and go back to the beginning. If you read it all, then congratulations you have a way bigger attention span then I've ever had. Until next time.
