Trending now, and as you may have guessed it, the CULPRIT of all of this is still??? Oh yeah, the I-N-T-E-R-N-E-T!!! From the Front Page Sections, translated…
and this, would be what that looked like in cartoon version…
A couple of days after the murder of that young girl in Neihu, Taipei, a news story from online stated that something similar happened in Tainan too; as the news got out, it’d immediately became this riot of the local citizens, circling around the police stations, demanding that the police turn over the suspect. And after the facts were all cleared up, and it wasn’t anything similar to the case in Neihu, but the crowd still won’t let up, the police even had to allow the “representative” of the gathering mob outside into the station, to “check” if the suspect was still held there, and ended this chaos. From this, the spreading of the rumors, and how the police had handled the matter, all had a ton of discussion and debate over. And, if the various sects of the society don’t pay attention to this, then, situations like this will probably be happening more and more.
First, the cause of this panic “Paparazzi Community”, is a Facebook group with over sixty thousand members, and surely enough, it’d reported on the firsthand news of numerous occurrences since it’d started, and initiated the discussions on the matters. And still, there’s no way of cross-checking the facts on Facebook, because it’s anonymous, and, it would be hard, to check if what’s been disclosed were true or false. The wrong messages, whether the person disclosing was doing it on purpose or not, once the contents had received attention from the public, through the millions and billions members of the online community, posting and reposting the stories, it would be hard, to stop the rumors from getting passed around, and even harder, for the world to stay unaffected, and chances will be, that the world is going to, go with the flow of the crowd.
and now, with real human beings…
And, if it was just from online, then, the results may have been limited; but, with the magnification effect from the news medias, then, it would exacerbate the situations. And now, the reporters used the “quick”, the “arousing the crowd” motives to seek out the news stories, and confirming the facts became secondary; and under this, the rumors from online, followed by the hounding press, became the standardized operating procedures of how rumors spread. And, if the stories are of the public’s interests, or that they’re those that causes emotional responses, then, the original belief of “letting the world be more aware” may become the fueling factor to an angry mob.
In recent years, there were, an influx of cases of random murders, not only did they cause the panic in the society, it’d also made the public question the ability to upkeep the law by the law enforcement agencies; and still, it doesn’t mean, that the internet, or discussion boards can become the hotbed for spreading the rumors and instilling widespread fear, nor does it mean, that private justice can replace the law either. The misrepresentations of information online, or those people who actually gathered around the police station, to ask the officers to lynch the suspects, are all challenging to the public laws, as well as the spreaders of fear, and, the two are exactly the same.
Actually the muckrakers used the internet, to manipulate the public, not only in the senses of criminal offenses, it also works, in the various public policies. But afterward everything blows over, and, it would be hard, to clear out which were the facts, and which were just opinions.
Freedom of speech is a basic human right that democratic governments must keep, and, there’s no way that the government can place a restriction on our freedom of speech. But what’s meant by freedom, first, it should NOT be invading the rights of the citizens. And so, the stories that hadn’t gotten the facts checked out, or those for the sakes of causing intentional damages, once the damages were done to the societies, there’s a need for a sort of a system of punishment, to prevent future occurrences.
And so, this, is very serious, because things spread so quickly, like a viral infection online, and, if a story that causes public anger really get to the public, then, you may well end up with the police, with the plastic shields, outside the separate stations, trying to keep the angry mob of local citizens from getting into the station, and taking JUSTICE into their own hands, there IS a justice system, so, why can’t you just let it do ITS work! Instead of taking matters into your own hands, and yeah sure, I believe, that some of those criminals DESERVE to D-I-E, but, even IF they do, deserve to die, it’s still, NOT up to you, to execute them!
not my photograph…