There
are troubling examples of our failing participatory democracy everywhere, and
the process has accelerated in the share-me digital age. Here are a few examples:
·
A
PR firm, Sunshine Sachs, reports The New York Times, was accused of editing
Wikipedia pages of its star clients to remove negative references. This was done through paid editors that
didn’t disclose their relationship to the firm, a violation of Wikipedia’s standards. The crowd-sourced, group-edited site has
repeatedly had issues with false information, censored information, and
improperly sourced material.
·
The
all-star voting for Major League baseball is done by fans. There have been cases where fans stuffed
paper ballots to get their hometown favorites into the All-Star game, often
when the player was not performing like a true all-star. It got worse this year when people were
allowed to cast online votes, apparently with no limitation. As a result, though voting is not yet final,
almost all of the players of one team, the KC Royals, could make the starting
lineup. They’re a good team, but they
don’t have a deserving all-star at every position.
·
Bestseller
lists are based on book sales but the lists can be manipulated and don’t
account for certain sales made outside of registered bookstore and online
channels. The truly bestselling books probably don’t match up with two-thirds
of the ones on official lists.
·
When
things are searched for on Google, the list of what comes up and the order it
comes up is not always in direct correlation to a meaningful or even fair
standard. Certainly, the algorithm used
is not transparent, yet search influences knowledge, news, commerce and politics.
·
Non-felons, who are over age 18 and are legal citizens have the right to vote but on average, only half do
in any given election, sometimes at far less numbers for equally important primaries. How can we have a responsible government when
no one accepts the responsibility to vote and to be informed?
Our
society depends on there being a legitimate structure. When we can’t depend on voting systems to be
legitimate or information reliable or our awards to be doled out on the merits,
we are a compromised nation. Americans
know or suspect that money influences everything. It’s a factor in in politics and other
aspects of our lives.
It’s
up to institutions to refrain from such practices and for citizens and consumers
to expose such stuff and call bullshit on all of the times powerful forces seek
to manipulate the facts of reality.
Lies, cover-ups, pay-offs, or blackmail are what run America.
The truth is out there – but so is a falsehood – so beware of which one you have stumbled upon. It’s getting harder to know if what one is being told is truth is in fact a fact lie. Read, question, research – and share what you find. We need to crowdsource the truth!
The truth is out there – but so is a falsehood – so beware of which one you have stumbled upon. It’s getting harder to know if what one is being told is truth is in fact a fact lie. Read, question, research – and share what you find. We need to crowdsource the truth!
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog
are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter
@theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more
important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by
BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2015
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