Saturday 3 March 2012

Gotcha!

As my long-suffering friends and relations will tell you, I'm kinda tedious on the subject of how the Internet is changing politics.

Well, look who agrees. Antonia Z.
Call it the hive mind, swarm intelligence, maybe collective consciousness.

Really, what’s happening online with the so-called “robo-call” scandal is all about crowdsourcing the story.

Posts and comments on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, alternative websites and even corporate media are bouncing off each other, adding to the mass of allegations of election wrongdoing by the Conservative party.

And it's not just what's happening now.

She pointedly points out that bloggers have been on this since the minute the polls closed, citing the Essential Alison and in particular, her blogpost on the margin of victory from May 5, 2011.

Continuing on with how the story is now being amplified, she quotes -- ooooo! -- DJ!'s own deBeauxOs.
For example, when news of Elections Canada’s investigation of the “deceptive robo-calls” hit the headlines, it took over Twitter.

“Those of us who had tried to flag these U.S.-styled tactics (last year) responded with tweets linking to previous news stories and our blogs,” says Ottawa blogger DeBeauxOs of Dammit Janet.

Each fed off the other and boom. The story exploded.

And the feeding continues. Antonia has the grace -- a substance lacking in most MSM stenographers -- to credit the indefatigable Sixth Estate for his excellent ongoing compilation of reports and commentary thereon.

There is a quibble from Alice Funke of the Pundits' Guide. She says that all this yammering on the Tubz may be 'muddying the waters'.

Um. No. We are propelling the War Canoe.

Funke worries that muddying and confusion is playing into the Stevie Peevie's evil plans.

Plan? This is planned?

Ha. The Contempt Party is in full-bore panic and scramble mode. (See: Del Mastro, Dean, passim.)

The upshot? As my friend and relations can tell you -- Utopia.

OK. Not quite.

That said, [Internet strategist and broadcaster Jesse] Hirsh thinks this scandal is just the beginning of crowdsourcing political news.

“What we’re seeing is a clear marking of this is how things are now done, and this is how things will be done going forward,” he says.

“And this may even be the last major political scandal because the only lesson a politico can take from all of this is, you’re going to get caught.”


Unlikely. But the blogosphere and twitterverse will have a grand time hunting the evil-doers down.

9 comments:

Greg Fingas said...

As rarely as I have to disagree with Alice, I'm with you on this one. And in fact it seems to me that it's the crowdsourcing that's doing more heavy lifting in figuring out exactly what happened than all but about three of the reporters covering the story - while the rest of the media seems satisfied with stories like "caught the Cons in a lie over using U.S. robocallers" which completely gloss over the actual election fraud.

Jim Parrett said...

And the Conservatives along with much of the media think this will just blow over! They still don't get social media, blogs and Twitter. They can't just wish us away. Not gonna happen.

deBeauxOs said...

This is why the serial adulterer and sexual predator Toews wants his government to control the Internet.

eh eh.

fern hill said...

We are Bloggers. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.

deBeauxOs said...

One might say we are the Intertoobz Rogue *Inquisition*.

Sol said...

http://youtu.be/NxGKUujCBJs

deBeauxOs said...

Sol's link, clickable.

Beijing York said...

Nicely done, Antonia!

Niles said...

Congratulations all around, heavy lifters. If it wasn't for the dogged obstinancy of you all putting stuff in 'print' since even before the last election, the emotional wake up call now wouldn't have had any teeth.

I'm certainly a bit cynical about the 'pro' reporters doing all the lead work on this, but even when they did it desultorily, it at least gave you starting points.

And yeah, I'm with Ms DeBee, stuff like this is exactly the point of trying to jackboot the internet with restrictive laws here, the US and all too many other places. People communicating with each other is the worst thing that can happen to the elite in power. No, check that. People communicating, providing the TRUTH, is the worst thing that can happen.

You're the irregulars against the standard formed armies of the power bases. Baker Street perhaps. But enough ordinary minds together can produce a Sherlock moment.

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