When 1-year-old Charlie bit the finger of his 3-year-old brother, their parents put their video on YouTube. It went viral, and by last month it had a record 433 million views. Politicians will do well to heed this as a lesson and a warning.
The Internet has added exponentially to a national habit of multiplying a rumor, a spoof or sometimes attack through word of mouth, graffiti (as “Kilroy was here”) and chain letters. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube can quickly spread a gaffe or video to millions. Email provides a powerful form of electronic chain letter when each recipient forwards an item to everyone on his or her address list, those recipients do the same and so on. Rapid growth of one of these communication flurries is known as “going viral,” like a disease epidemic.
Political activists have caught onto the power of viral communication, and some politicians have felt its sting. Barack Obama felt it as a U.S. senator in 2007, although as a beneficiary. A young woman on a video sang seductively, “I got a crush on Obama,” and it quickly went viral. He complained that the Obama Girl video had upset his daughters, but it helped him toward the presidency.
President Obama soon became a prime adverse target. False rumors spread through the Internet, often going viral, that he was not truly a U.S. citizen, that he wouldn’t allow a Christmas tree or religious ornaments in the White House, that he planned to impose a 1 percent tax on all bank deposits and that he received a Fulbright Scholarship that was awarded only to foreign-born students. All were found to be fraudulent. A widely circulated photograph seemed to show the president and his wife holding their left hands over their chests instead of their right hands over their hearts, but it had been doctored.
As the 2012 presidential campaign goes forward, viral Internet videos have spread false rumors as well as actual gaffes and helped torpedo the campaigns of Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination.
Last month, Rick Santorum became a victim of an Internet smear when a fictional account of his supposed speech attacking heavy metal music as “satanic” went viral. Another viral attack, posted on Facebook, had him saying, “Gay pornography is the reason people choose the gay lifestyle or what I call the deathstyle. If we got rid of that, homosexuality would be gone within a matter of months. This is one of only a few things I see eye-to-eye on with the Taliban.” What he actually said was, “While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum administration.” The rest was fictional.
Mitt Romney so far has gotten off relatively easy except for some of his actual gaffes that have gone viral, as when he said that his wife, Ann, “drives a couple of Cadillacs.”
One of the few attacks against Mr. Romney took the form of a group picture of him supposedly with his family displaying big letters that spelled “MONEY” instead of “ROMNEY.” Investigation revealed that it was a doctored version of a genuine AP photo of Mr. Romney with an actual Nevada family holding signs that spelled his name correctly.
More viral Internet smears can be expected as this election year goes on. They will come not only from political activists but also from the general public, which seems to suffer close to an addiction to humor and spoofs.
Fortunately, several organizations are watching the Internet to catch and expose fakes. Among them are FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and David Emery’s About.com, owned by the New York Times.
People can do their part in stemming this ugly tide by simply pressing “delete” instead of the “forward” key when they get a phony email.
Fortunately, several organizations are watching the Internet to catch and expose fakes. Among them are FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and David Emery’s About.com, owned by the New York Times.
Now there are some unbiased sources if I ever saw one.
fyi that is not Maine’s former Representative David Emery with about.com…….
Thanks but I was referencing the allways fair, never plagiarizing, unbiased newspaper that has never ever lied in a story, the most reputable New York Times.
Ha ha ha ha ha. If you can actually say that with a straight face, you are a better person than I .
“Now there are some unbiased sources if I ever saw one.”
No kidding. This is the best satirical piece yet by the BDN.
OH, now I see it all – because of the mention in the article of “homosexuality”, the article is appearing “Obama-like” because of subliminal votes coming his way, once again. Anyway, mistakes (gaffes) are made, just as much as the voters who were allegedly duped into voting for the artistic verbosity of Barack Hussein Obama four years ago when he went jet-setting – or was it stumbling – across the country causing people to become starstruck with “stylistics”. We all make mistakes.
When one of the US Supreme Court Justices (woman) declares that she prefers Africa’s (one of the states there) Constitution over and above the United States Constitution – and Obama supports that declaration – you tell me what kind of “gaffe’ in the form of our elected and appointed representatives at the top levels we have now?
Quit spewing talking points. That’s not what she said re: our Constitution. Look at the statement in context and then get back to us.
Possibly you’re referring to Justice Ginsberg’s interview on Egyptian television in January where she responded to a question on the forming of a new Egyptian Constitution in the wake of the ouster of Mubarak:
She said,
“You should certainly be aided by all the constitution writing that has gone on since the end of World War II. I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. “That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights [and] had an independent judiciary. It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done.”
You might not be aware that there have been good ideas since 1789.
Similarly, you may not be aware that the U.S. Constitution did not spring fully formed from the skulls of the founding fathers. There were also good ideas prior to the convention.
I’m guessing that the framers of the South African Constitution may have also used an idea or two from the U.S. Constitution.
So — here you go, taking something out of context. When our Constution was written, slavery was allowed, women could not vote, Senators were elected by state legislatures and not by the people, the president was elected by electors who were themselves elected by state legislatures — So Justice Ginsburg was saying that yes, South Africa’s Constitution is a good document, “a great piece of work” as she said. When you look at the context, her remark was quite reasonable. But right-wingers want to find something sinister, so they take the remark out of context and distort what was actually said in order to make it sound as if it is somehow unpatriotic. Such baloney!
Nothing derogatory in the assessment of people who are in one greater political and social position than we are who made the same comment and assertion of the Ginsberg statement as I did above. I know what she said, as it is in a report put out by the US Government. It is what she said after the fact to insider’s ABOUT HER STATEMENT that was recorded and made public that was not printed or escaping through television news media that was the problem. Sure, the US Constitution was written before it was ratified and those years in the mid-1700’s were quite different in every way from today’s social and political atmosphere as we are now on a worldwide structure. But it is not the US Constitution that is the problem here, it is the plain fact these “representatives” we have all across the US and in federal government cannot do their jobs the way the people demand it, and stick their long noses into the business of other country’s who really want nothing to do with the US or its policies any longer. Her statement was, in the eyes of some world governments and officials of the USA, way out of school. I stand by my comment, but thanks for the returns.
What Justice Ginsberg statement are you referencing?
First, you claim that a Supreme Court Justice made a gaffe by preferring the South African Constitution over the US, leaving out the entire context of her statment.
After I attempted to clarify your original statement with a quick internet search and response, you now respond with some unknown statement “she said after the fact to insider’s about her statement that was recorded and made public that was not printed or escaping through television news media that was the problem”. What might this be?
Second, You seem to be able to provide as fact that you have a list of names of world governments and USA officials offended by Justice Ginsberg’s statements, but not the names themselves.
Finally, you seem to be saying
1. Since the Egyptians no longer wish to be governed by US backed Mubarak, that they have no interest in our Constitution and therefore Justice Ginsberg’s opinions on what they should use to rewrite their constitution are unwelcome.
2. Justice’s whose job revolves around the US Constitution shouldn’t offer their opinions to those in the process of forming a constitution.
As you say, we are now “on a worldwide structure”. Shouldn’t our Justice’s be allowed to state their opinions in interviews on the merits of various constitutions?
The USA has a major problem. That being simply, the USA has taken on itself as being the “Constitution Doctor” for most world countries who are getting new governments and all their leaders have gone away. If the US could retain itself as composed, unto and into itself for 100 years or more, that would be a great thing for the country.
Don’t forget to include Obama’s attack watch dot com …anyone caught criticizing the President is to report it directly to this site. Also ….Make sure to delete the 400 SPAM messages from the OBAMA campaign that you receive daily….unless you want to have dinner with Barack.
Looks like a veiled attempt at saying, “We need to regulate the internet, for our own safety! People’s feelings will be hurt if we don’t!”