The (New) Court of Public Opinion

[panamaican]

I don't think you'd be very happy if your livelihood were to suffer because of something you posted on Sherdog though.

I wouldn't be happy if it suffered over something I say in a restaurant either but it's a risk I take when I go out to eat. I live in a busy part of town and I'm frequently running into other professionals, even on the weekends. I run the risk that my weekend wardrobe will give people the wrong impression of me, the individual, and cost me business down the road. If your livelihood is dependent on social approval then you have to accept all that comes with it.

I'm not being forgiving of individuals of the past, in fact its because there's a robust history of obtaining private information to smear opponents that I'm worried. Now with the internet that private information is more private and there's a lot more of it and with how vast the information is it wouldn't be too hard to take some of that information out of context to craft a misleading picture of that person's private internet use. Take a few Google searches here and an email or two there and you can have a very different picture of what the person was actually doing. Before you needed to catch someone cheating on their wife or soliciting a prostitute, now you might only need to know if they had an Ashley Madison account, one they might have never even intended to use seriously, or Googled escorts, perhaps out of curiosity, to smear them.

I fail to see how that's any different from before. If anything, there's more context on the internet because exculpating information is also preserved. In the past, if someone made up a story about you and put it in the paper, fighting it was much more difficult.

Let's take something that's in the public eye: ISIS. If you check into the WR threads on them you'll find there are a lot of people who are fascinated by them, some of whom might've done their own research. Take a few Google searches and perhaps some browser history showing some ISIS twitter accounts and slap on the headline "ISIS sympathizer? A Psych Major's internet history and what it might tell us about his politics". Now that might not be enough to get me charged with terrorism but it might be enough to keep me from winning an election if timed right.

Not to sound cavalier...then shouldn't you ignore ISIS threads if you're concerned that your comments aren't clear? And again, what's to stop someone from posting an op-ed in the newspaper and claim that you made such comments in a private conversation? At least with the WR, you can highlight the specific posts referenced and provided documented proof to the contrary. I think there's significant value to fighting insinuations that gets overlooked.

I don't want to make it seem like its all bad, the police videos are a good example of how the ubiquity of cameras and the internet can do good.

fair enough.

 

[FinalFight]

The court of public opinion has always operated this way. Mob rule has always settled social matters that don't concern the law.

More often than not, when people decry the effect of the court of public opinion, they're often decrying that they're on the less popular side of the issue. In these cases, it's not the court of public opinion that they are upset with - it's that the court doesn't agree with them and they fear that the consequences of an issue will negatively impact them.

Tellingly, people often ignore the numerous issues/agendas that don't "go viral". There are literally thousands of new videos/audio of individuals and celebrities uploaded to the internet every day. 99.999% of them are mostly ignored because the issues being addressed don't contradict the general public's idea of what's best for society. The very few that do, go viral not because of someone's agenda but because society as a group has strong feelings about the subject.

In short, people just don't like being on the wrong side of public opinion because they feel that it will eventually hurt them. But that's life. What society deems acceptable is always in flux and what was accepted last year or 2 years ago or 20 years isn't guaranteed to be accepted tomorrow, in 5 years or in 15.

Nicely put.

 

[panamaican]

That ain't it. You are educated and smart but you are missing the danger of the way outrage can be amplified with ease. It used to require large efforts for propaganda to have an effect. Now with social media and the Internet banging your best friend's girl and saying something non PC can ruin you. That's not right. If anything the adultery ought to be the problem. Nope. It's a word endemic in subculture but is used as an intellectually dishonest "gotcha!"

I'm not ignoring the ease of amplification, I actually think that's a good thing.

The counterpoint is that in the past it was very easy to bury things that probably needed more attention. As I was saying to Psych Major, there's a balance in effect. Some things might catch on more quickly but things that need attention are harder to hide.

And this PC/non-PC thing is a political farce. It's become a buzzword that serves no purpose but to make it seem that when society's position on a subject has changed that something nefarious is in play. Life has always been about being PC. Your boss's mom has a mole on her chin, you don't sit in the break room insulting women with moles. That's PC and no one would bat an eye lash if it was told to them as a way to protect their jobs. No one would argue "My boss can't fire me because I think his mom's ugly." But you take it to the larger social context and suddenly the rules are different? I think not.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I agree with a lot of what you say, in particular about over-"enlightened" mob mentality and the motives of those trying to ruin people.

But having freedom of speech and the right to due process does not mean that society can't react to your words or jump to conclusions. No one is entitled to due process in the court of public opinion, because there is no process. There are only loud, obnoxious, unforgiving voices that love watching people fall.

Very true. The internet and constant presence of cameras really does mean that people have to be much more careful about their actions. It's not all bad (police can't just assume they can mess with people and not get filmed), but it does change the dynamics of separating public and private life.

The totally arbitrary nature of it is disturbing, but again it's largely just a function of what resonates with people and not a conspiracy of any sort.

 

[Dogstarman]

Started to write this as a reply to the Hogan thread, but then thought this deserved it's own.

Justice as an ideal is supposed to be equally applied and have codified degrees of right and wrong and proportional responses. Not whims.

Instead, now the question is - did the incident go viral? If so, appease the mob, and destroy the offender and most of the time, do it fast. No weighing of evidence and no due process.

I'm beginning to even question the motives of some of the people releasing offensive viral videos. Are they truly interested in justice, or just destroying someone they don't like. Got an enemy you don't like? Stalk him with a camera, or set up a hidden camera and be patient. Everyone is bound to do or say A Ton of stupid things over their 80 year life span, better hope it doesn't get caught on camera...

The nuance here, the current precedent is that leaders and celebrities are held to a much higher standard and apparently anything goes with them. While his comments are horrible, they were also 8 years ago and from a private conversation. What if the tape were 20 years old? How about 30? 50? So according to precedent it's ok cause he's a celeb (I don't like this precedent), but I don't think we want this to trickle into the general population.

This online community is not the traditional in person court of public opinion. Where if you say something about someone in person, you might encounter his friends or family and have to stand by your comments. Online is scorched earth. And while most of the time the person is guilty of wrong doing, it's important to keep in mind this is the same community that attempted to destroy Curt Schilling's daughter and Robin William's daughter for no GD reason whatsoever. And in the case of Zelda she just lost her dad, wtf is wrong with people. Even when they're right, to whatever degree, this is probably not a court you want to give credibility to.

Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Thought, Due Process, Justice and Reasonable Expectations of Privacy, at the new interfaces of high technology and human nature, all of these high ideals are being threatened at the moment.

Do we want to get closer and closer to thought crime and a Hitler youth tattle-tell society?

You are free to speak. You are free to have your own thoughts. There is still due process. You need to stop equating public scrutiny with the law of the land. If you want to espouse hateful shit and wear Nazi shit that is your right. The government can't really tell you not to wear or display that shit.

Just don't expect people to accept you with open arms when you display or speak your crazy talk.

 

[OldGoat]

I'm not ignoring the ease of amplification, I actually think that's a good thing.

The counterpoint is that in the past it was very easy to bury things that probably needed more attention. As I was saying to Psych Major, there's a balance in effect. Some things might catch on more quickly but things that need attention are harder to hide.

And this PC/non-PC thing is a political farce. It's become a buzzword that serves no purpose but to make it seem that when society's position on a subject has changed that something nefarious is in play. Life has always been about being PC. Your boss's mom has a mole on her chin, you don't sit in the break room insulting women with moles. That's PC and no one would bat an eye lash if it was told to them as a way to protect their jobs. No one would argue "My boss can't fire me because I think his mom's ugly." But you take it to the larger social context and suddenly the rules are different? I think not.

You just don't get the specter of ubiquitous surveillance. We are treading into thought crime territory with some of this stuff. Imagine if someone put a hidden camera in your bedroom.

Are you 100% comfortable with what you say or do with your wife or your own self in private being made public? Should everyone live in fear of a leaked tape? Counter surveillance for celebrities might be the next big industry.

This isn't about the social norms of being polite at dinner or be judged a jackass. This is about losing your career for telling a Polish joke in your den. And what's vastly worse is the selective outrage. Jesse Jackson on a live mic said heinous things about president Obama. Yet that shyster still is in his shakedown business.

 

[Islam Imamate]

I wouldn't be happy if it suffered over something I say in a restaurant either but it's a risk I take when I go out to eat. I live in a busy part of town and I'm frequently running into other professionals, even on the weekends. I run the risk that my weekend wardrobe will give people the wrong impression of me, the individual, and cost me business down the road. If your livelihood is dependent on social approval then you have to accept all that comes with it.

The issue is the line between public and private is increasingly blurred. So yes, the court of public opinion hasn't changed much in some very important ways but I think what many find troubling is that the scope of what it weighs in on has been vastly increased by technology when compared to previous decades.

I fail to see how that's any different from before. If anything, there's more context on the internet because exculpating information is also preserved. In the past, if someone made up a story about you and put it in the paper, fighting it was much more difficult.

Not to sound cavalier...then shouldn't you ignore ISIS threads if you're concerned that your comments aren't clear? And again, what's to stop someone from posting an op-ed in the newspaper and claim that you made such comments in a private conversation? At least with the WR, you can highlight the specific posts referenced and provided documented proof to the contrary. I think there's significant value to fighting insinuations that gets overlooked.

But with the vast amount of information on the internet, and the fact that some of it is only accessible to certain parties, it can be hard put somethings into context, not to mention the internet facilitates the spread of the original falsehood in the first place. Never before has the saying "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put its shoes on" been more true.

Going back to the Google search point, one could leak a handful of searches that paints a certain picture that is contrary to what the reality is when those searches are put into the context of the tens of thousands of searches the person has conducted and the resulting activity but that is a lot of information to process and it might not even be readily available to everyone.

 

[panamaican]

The issue is the line between public and private is increasingly blurred. So yes, the court of public opinion hasn't changed much in some very important ways but I think what many find troubling is that the scope of what it weighs in on has been vastly increased by technology when compared to previous decades.

But I think the immediately preceding time period is more of an aberration than the historical norm. The scope of what the public can weigh in on has historically been, well, everything. We've simply come out of a strange period where technology, specifically the automobile, has allowed people to live in distant communities where the illusion of privacy became greater. Many of the major technological advances in the last 60+ years have been about shrinking the distance between people's lives, not increasing it. It's all been about putting people in position to share and comment on the same events more easily.

Radio, telephones, television, internet, cellular phones, text messages, video messaging, etc. Society wants shrink the distances, not increase them.

But with the vast amount of information on the internet, and the fact that some of it is only accessible to certain parties, it can be hard put somethings into context, not to mention the internet facilitates the spread of the original falsehood in the first place. Never before has the saying "A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put its shoes on" been more true.

Going back to the Google search point, one could leak a handful of searches that paints a certain picture that is contrary to what the reality is when those searches are put into the context of the tens of thousands of searches the person has conducted and the resulting activity but that is a lot of information to process and it might not even be readily available to everyone.

Your quote about the lie travelling halfway around the world is indeed an old one and it should be instructive. The complaints that are being made right now are about something that is an old concern. When you place the blame on technology or this era or public/privacy, you're disregarding the history of the court of public opinion.

It's no different than the people who claim that their generation worked harder and had better music than those lazy kids. People haven't changed and people's complaints about other people haven't either.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

But I think the immediately preceding time period is more of an aberration than the historical norm. The scope of what the public can weigh in on has historically been, well, everything. We've simply come out of a strange period where technology, specifically the automobile, has allowed people to live in distant communities where the illusion of privacy became greater. Many of the major technological advances in the last 60+ years have been about shrinking the distance between people's lives, not increasing it. It's all been about putting people in position to share and comment on the same events more easily.

Radio, telephones, television, internet, cellular phones, text messages, video messaging, etc. Society wants shrink the distances, not increase them.



Your quote about the lie travelling halfway around the world is indeed an old one and it should be instructive. The complaints that are being made right now are about something that is an old concern. When you place the blame on technology or this era or public/privacy, you're disregarding the history of the court of public opinion.

It's no different than the people who claim that their generation worked harder and had better music than those lazy kids. People haven't changed and people's complaints about other people haven't either.

You've made many great points/observations. Did you address how technology now better allows for society's judgments to follow a person from place to place? In the past if things went wrong in your town or state you could move to a new one and start fresh. That might be more difficult now.

 

[panamaican]

You just don't get the specter of ubiquitous surveillance. We are treading into thought crime territory with some of this stuff. Imagine if someone put a hidden camera in your bedroom.

Are you 100% comfortable with what you say or do with your wife or your own self in private being made public? Should everyone live in fear of a leaked tape? Counter surveillance for celebrities might be the next big industry.

This isn't about the social norms of being polite at dinner or be judged a jackass. This is about losing your career for telling a Polish joke in your den. And what's vastly worse is the selective outrage. Jesse Jackson on a live mic said heinous things about president Obama. Yet that shyster still is in his shakedown business.

You keep saying I don't something just because I don't share the same perspective on it as you. I get the specter of ubiquitous surveillance. I don't think we're anywhere closer to thought crimes than we've ever been. I think the fears that you're expressing ignore history.

Am I comfortable with what I say to my wife or son being made public? I don't fear it. The things I say to my wife or my son are the same things I say to my mom and the same things I say on this board. More importantly, they're the same things I say at the bar or on the playground or basketball court. I don't tell Polish jokes, so to speak, in private. If I told them in private and not in public then I'd be being disingenuous. I try not to be.

Out of curiosity, where do you think social opinions come from, if not from society passing judgment on otherwise private behavior? Why is wife beating frowned on when it's a purely private behavior? Why is adultery scorned? So forth and on. The moral judgment on private behavior has always dictated the public moral position and it's always been selective. The only thing that's changed is that the majority fears the direction of the new moral judgment.

 

[ncordless]

To add to what has already been said (and I tend to agree with Pan's position), while the internet has made things travel faster, there is also much more anonymity in exercising free speech than there used to be. For instance, I don't know any of you guys. You don't really know me. So much of what is said nowadays cannot even be attributed to the actual speaker/author.

Back in the day, everything you said had the consequence of being attributed to you. Now, most of what you say is not.

The court of public opinion has always acted this way. Hell, it used to be much worse. It used to be that your free speech and religious beliefs might invite you to an actual lynching (see Elijah Lovejoy or Joseph Smith). Hell, our country's founding included tarring and feathering people for unpopular speech. And today we are going to complain because more people can hear what you say? Really?

 

[Islam Imamate]

But I think the immediately preceding time period is more of an aberration than the historical norm. The scope of what the public can weigh in on has historically been, well, everything. We've simply come out of a strange period where technology, specifically the automobile, has allowed people to live in distant communities where the illusion of privacy became greater. Many of the major technological advances in the last 60+ years have been about shrinking the distance between people's lives, not increasing it. It's all been about putting people in position to share and comment on the same events more easily.

Radio, telephones, television, internet, cellular phones, text messages, video messaging, etc. Society wants shrink the distances, not increase them.

I never denied that the court of public opinion would weigh in on anything, its just that now they can much easier. By saying that technology has shrunk the distance in people's lives you're conceding the point; people have always weighed on private matters and now with current technology they can like never before.

Your quote about the lie travelling halfway around the world is indeed an old one and it should be instructive. The complaints that are being made right now are about something that is an old concern. When you place the blame on technology or this era or public/privacy, you're disregarding the history of the court of public opinion.

It's no different than the people who claim that their generation worked harder and had better music than those lazy kids. People haven't changed and people's complaints about other people haven't either.

You don't think technology is blurring the line between public and private?

Sure people haven't changed and the nature of the complaints haven't either but now the ubiquity of technology has magnified the lens under which were judged and has grown the mob exponentially. Now someone from across the country can attempt to harass you if you're deemed guilty in the court of public opinion in a way that wasn't possible 50 years ago or ever.

 

[mtron929]

You keep saying I don't something just because I don't share the same perspective on it as you. I get the specter of ubiquitous surveillance. I don't think we're anywhere closer to thought crimes than we've ever been. I think the fears that you're expressing ignore history.

Am I comfortable with what I say to my wife or son being made public? I don't fear it. The things I say to my wife or my son are the same things I say to my mom and the same things I say on this board. More importantly, they're the same things I say at the bar or on the playground or basketball court. I don't tell Polish jokes, so to speak, in private. If I told them in private and not in public then I'd be being disingenuous. I try not to be.

Out of curiosity, where do you think social opinions come from, if not from society passing judgment on otherwise private behavior? Why is wife beating frowned on when it's a purely private behavior? Why is adultery scorned? So forth and on. The moral judgment on private behavior has always dictated the public moral position and it's always been selective. The only thing that's changed is that the majority fears the direction of the new moral judgment.

I posted a hypothetical scenario on the Hulk Hogan thread but perhaps this thread is more apt for this hypothetical question. Let's say that there was a device that perfectly read people's minds. Unfortunately the device was hacked into and it read Hogan's thoughts (not words), which were filled with racist ideas. You think he would still deserve the same/similar level of public scorn that he is currently getting? In this new scenario, we do not have any recordings of his conversation. Just the thoughts.

 

[Sabin]

Of course but technology has slowly eroded our privacy. Cameras are increasingly small and prevalent in our lives and are increasingly capturing private, sometimes intimate, moments. Our internet history is also a window into our personal lives and increasingly that information is becoming available to 3rd parties. I'm sure we've all Googled something we wouldn't want an employer or the general public to know we've Googled. We knows companies like Google and Microsoft sell the information they hae on us to companies for advertising purposes so I don't think its crazy to think in the future it might be sold/leaked for other purposes.

When you couple this with the overzealous witch hunts I think it paints a scary picture; anyone is fair game and everyone, or at least everone who has used the internet, is vulnerable.

This, coupled with the scope and speed of the internet - the permanence of everything.

Everyone's aware of the dangers and permanence of photos on the web, but how about thoughts? Picture yourself as a celebrity and every comment you have ever made in private to have possibly been recorded. Yeah, if Hogan's getting "erased" over this, I'm pretty sure 90+% of the people on planet earth have said something in private that could lead to their own erasing. If you include your family and friends, bam close to 100%. And I've seen search terms start to be used by the media in criminal cases as well. Pretty sure a lot of average joe's have terms in their online life history that could be sensationalized or twisted in some way.

As for your witch hunt comment, I found a pretty good example of that on Vox. Some Reddit users wanted to play judge, jury, and executioner, got it wrong, and tormented a family for a few weeks.

"In April 2013, shortly after the Boston Marathon Bombing, users on Reddit came to believe that a young man named Sunil Tripathi had conducted the attack. Someone who resembled Tripathi had been visible in photos of the marathon, and as it turned out Tripathi was suspiciously missing. The internet mob turned on Tripathi's family, bombarding it with hundreds of threats; his sister received 58 phone calls just between 3 and 4 am that night.

A few weeks later, the Tripathis, after enduring the trauma of online and real-world harassment, learned that Sunil had in fact died in an apparent suicide some time before the attack. Reddit users apologized, but it was too late. Mob justice had been done."

 

[panamaican]

You've made many great points/observations. Did you address how technology now better allows for society's judgments to follow a person from place to place? In the past if things went wrong in your town or state you could move to a new one and start fresh. That might be more difficult now.

That's true. It's harder to start fresh thanks to the permanence of the internet.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

That's true. It's harder to start fresh thanks to the permanence of the internet.

Porn never dies.

 

[panamaican]

I never denied that the court of public opinion would weigh in on anything, its just that now they can much easier. By saying that technology has shrunk the distance in people's lives you're conceding the point; people have always weighed on private matters and now with current technology they can like never before.

It's shrunk the distance only after artificially extending it. Prior to the automobile, people didn't have the same amount of space between them as they do now. That had the effect of making people feel as if they had more privacy than the previous generations. Technology is now restoring the balance that it upset in the first place.

You don't think technology is blurring the line between public and private?

No, I think there's never been a difference between public and private except for in the context of legal definitions for government purposes. I think we've taken what was a primarily legal construct and are treating it like it's a real thing. We're playing make believe.

Sure people haven't changed and the nature of the complaints haven't either but now the ubiquity of technology has magnified the lens under which were judged and has grown the mob exponentially. Now someone from across the country can attempt to harass you if you're deemed guilty in the court of public opinion in a way that wasn't possible 50 years ago or ever.

Across the country may be new but that's only because it used to be across the village. That's what I'm driving at. Go to some of those 18th century historical villages, there was no "privacy" in the sense that we're discussing it now. Everything was essentially public. If you raised your voice, the entire village knew when and why and judged you accordingly. It's only in last 100 or so years, that this modern idea of privacy, where no one knows anything about you, has seemed to take root.

Now, you can be judged by people halfway across the country and your neighbor still have no idea what you did if they're not on the right websites. It used to be, your neighbor knew what you did and the guy halfway across the country didn't. SSDD.

 

[panamaican]

Porn never dies.

Well, Stallone is proof that even that predated the internet.

 

[OldGoat]

It's shrunk the distance only after artificially extending it. Prior to the automobile, people didn't have the same amount of space between them as they do now. That had the effect of making people feel as if they had more privacy than the previous generations. Technology is now restoring the balance that it upset in the first place.



No, I think there's never been a difference between public and private except for in the context of legal definitions for government purposes. I think we've taken what was a primarily legal construct and are treating it like it's a real thing. We're playing make believe.



Across the country may be new but that's only because it used to be across the village. That's what I'm driving at. Go to some of those 18th century historical villages, there was no "privacy" in the sense that we're discussing it now. Everything was essentially public. If you raised your voice, the entire village knew when and why and judged you accordingly. It's only in last 100 or so years, that this modern idea of privacy, where no one knows anything about you, has seemed to take root.

Now, you can be judged by people halfway across the country and your neighbor still have no idea what you did if they're not on the right websites. It used to be, your neighbor knew what you did and the guy halfway across the country didn't. SSDD.

Hulk was videotaped secretly having sex. If you think that it's acceptable to have that level of intrusion into one's private affairs you have less sense than I've given you credit for.

 

[panamaican]

I posted a hypothetical scenario on the Hulk Hogan thread but perhaps this thread is more apt for this hypothetical question. Let's say that there was a device that perfectly read people's minds. Unfortunately the device was hacked into and it read Hogan's thoughts (not words), which were filled with racist ideas. You think he would still deserve the same/similar level of public scorn that he is currently getting? In this new scenario, we do not have any recordings of his conversation. Just the thoughts.

Strictly public scorn? So negative feedback from the public and people that he knows personally? No government responses, right?

Would he deserve the same treatment? I don't think he deserves any treatment, I think public responses to private thoughts becoming public is a normal part of life. I wouldn't judge him any differently but I wouldn't find it odd for other people to judge him.

The point that I think OG, and maybe you, are missing isn't that I'm saying people should scorn him for his private thoughts. It's that asking the public to ignore something after it has become public is unrealistic. It's normal, humans are social. We discuss and judge other humans. If knew information about another person becomes public, then society will judge.

That's what I'm disagreeing with - the idea that society should ignore what it learns, regardless of how it learns it.