No, they face jail time for spreading a false story that caused a panic. Twitter just happens to be the mechanism they used. They'd be facing the same consequences if they had used radio, or the telephone, or skywriting.
Its out of control down there! 30 years for a tweet (despite the panic it caused) while drug lords roam around like kings... c'mon people, twitter is not your primary source of news for potential emergencies of this caliber. But yeah the story is a bit fuzzy on some of the details. eh.
I think the difference is that it's more obvious that aliens in NJ are a joke. Armed men kidnapping children from schools in Mexico is an entirely realistic scenario that any reasonable person should expect to cause a panic.
It's almost like that but times have changed. In 1938 it was mainly a broadcast of a message which then wasn't easy to broadcast again by the people. Nowadays you broadcast something and in a couple of minutes it can reach the whole country just because of re-tweets and mobile messages. The end result can be a good number of times worse because of this.
Or maybe we should think twice about saying things like "your kids are being killed at school". I am open to suggestions but I have never heard about a book causing mayhem in a couple of minutes.
The reason why is that people don't expect to trust books. Open a random book at the bookstore, and it's probably a story that the author made up. Twitter is the same way, but people don't realize this yet.
I don't see why authors should be held responsible for their readers' stupidity, though.
That classic scenario originated in an opinion supporting jailing someone for handing out flyers opposing the WWI draft, during a period in American history when jailing people for antiwar speech or speech encouraging Socialism or Communism was frequent. It has been superceeded by law and decisions more in accordance with the First Amendment at least half a dozen times since.
The definition of free speech that that argument was used to defend was the Espionage Act of 1917 which:
o Made it a crime to convey information with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the armed forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies, punishable by death or by imprisonment for not more than 30 years or both,
o Made it a crime to convey false reports or false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States, punishable by a maximum fine of $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than 20 years or both,
o Made it a crime to promote the success of its enemies when the United States is at war, punishable by a maximum fine of $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than 20 years or both,
o Made it a crime to cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, punishable by a maximum fine of $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than 20 years or both, and
o Made it a crime to willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, punishable by a maximum fine of $10,000 or by imprisonment for not more than 20 years or both.
The Sedition Act of 1918 extended this to:
o Make it a crime to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt, and
o Give the Postmaster General the right to go through mail and refuse to deliver any that did any of these things while the United States was at war.
This resulted in about 1500 prosecutions and 1000 convictions for speech, and the sentences were generally between 5 and 20 years.
The problem is, as it's mentioned on the article, that living in an information vacuum Twitter gets to be over-trusted. Journalists are reporting very fragmented and incomplete news as Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries to be a journalist. Almost all the mass media have signed a self-censorship agreement ("Iniciativa México") to limit the impact of the narco messages on the public, thus leaving people to follow unreliable media. Messages are sent by narco through actions: murders as gruesome as the desired impact of the message. Read about "blog del narco" through Google translate (I wouldn't recommend to look for the actual blog del narco) http://translate.google.com.mx/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&#...
I definitely wouldn't go off a single person that I didn't know personally's Tweets, usually on anything of consequence you would look for multiple confirmations on Twitter and some evidence of the event in other places online.
Id say call the school, another parent, or any other point of contact you could possible imagine before you go smashing up your car in a panic... I never really understood the lapse of social responsibility in these situations. Not to take away from the complete horror at the thought of your child being shot or kidnapped (I could never come close to knowing how that feels) but these are the inherent dangers that come with new technologies (specifically information tech). I mean really though, what are these parents going to do to protect their kids against armed gunmen? We have witnessed the powerful benefit of twitter and FB, etc in assisting communities and families in the aftermath of disaster, but what have these "instant info systems" done to help people mid disaster or to prevent one all together? It's fast, but its not time travel... Id say just keep your reliable sources on check and close at hand. But then again, I cant say I wouldn't go barreling down the street in a panic to make sure my loved one were ok.
Being a movie superhero I'd jump in the car and race down there, leaping into the fray and killing all the terrorists, including the midget pretending to be the cute little girl. Then I'd get a medal, and a pony.
You though, lacking superpowers, couldn't help if you were there. So I dunno, maybe you should frantically search until you get positive evidence, and an idea of what you could do to help, before you decide what to do.
There are laws to deal with the guy if these was a scheme to profit. If he was deluded there's no reason to take actions, he's no worse than the idiots who ran around because of his rumors. In fact his action was better. By forwarding his news he's inviting conversation and investigation, by running off to the school the terrified parents are actually potentially causing a problem.
I can kind of understand that the original person was somewhat in the wrong (although to a much lesser degree) but not the person relaying the message. Journalists do this kind of thing all the time, report something that later turns out to be wrong.
A similar thing happened last week in Johannesburg. Our ruling party is conducting a long overdue purge of its Youth League, and there was a rent-a-crowd bussed in by the targeted faction, outside the party HQ in central Johannesburg, that threw some stones at police and reporters. However, on Twitter, I saw a rumour that stones were being thrown on a main road in the rich northern suburbs. The rumour spread on Twitter despite almost immediate denials.
Although panic didn't take hold, because of limited Twitter penetration, and because the idea that the stone throwing jumped 20 km northwards into white suburbia probably set off BS detectors, it could have gotten out of hand fast. In fact, I expect a major social-networking fed panic to happen here soon enough.
When someone says "I confirm", it means that they have personally seen or heard something. I have very little sympathy for the person who created the original tweet. A bit more for the person who retweeted. In both cases 30 years is too harsh, but there do need to be consequences for creating chaos on such a large scale.
Which is what you want someone to do if they even think there's a fire. Even if they're only relaying the news without checking.
Imagine if I a guy came rushing out of the bathroom shouting 'Fire' and a bunch of people went in the check before anyone would evacuate. Obviously many more people could die. The downside? One unnecessary evacuation that probably needed practice anyways.
It seems like the world is full of authoritarians though, seeking to punish everyone for everything.
I've been through 30+ unexpected fire alarms. At home, school, work, the library, at friend's apartment buildings, etc. In all these times nobody has been hurt by the crowd at all, let alone killed.
I'm not saying it happens all the time, but it could happen, especially in a packed room, such as a theater. If death results from an intentional false alarm, I believe the culprit should be punished, and we should discourage such behavior.
Of course, we shouldn't punish people who genuinely thought there was a fire. We definitely should encourage people to give the alarm when needed.
"Intentional false alarms of any kind, especially through emergency notification systems, are very serious criminal offenses, and can result in very severe legal punishments."
>>>> Even if they're only relaying the news without checking.
Dunno if you recognize that, but it's my premise from earlier. In it I was talking about a scenario like the one in Mexico is thought to be - a re-tweeter, not a rumor creator.
I think we are actually in agreement on this. It's wrong to punish people who genuinely thought there was a fire, or who relayed a reasonably plausible alarm without checking.
My initial comment wasn't an attempt to totally rebute yours, and I should have made that clear. I was focusing on:
>>>The downside? One unnecessary evacuation that probably needed practice anyways.
You seemed to consider the unnecessary evacuation as a minor perturbation. I pointed out that such an evacuation is not 100% risk-free.
Of course, nothing is 100% risk-free, and we need to take this into account when doing risk analysis. After our discussion, I guess the risk of accidents during an unnecessary evacuation might actually be lower than the risk of having people not raising the alarm when needed (due to a fear of being punished if it turns out they were wrong). But this risk still needs to be weighed when considering this problem.
Mexico doesn't have freedom of speech. According to the constitution, speech can be restricted if it offends good morals, incites crime, disturbs the public order, or disrespects private lives, morals, and the public peace. In the 1930s, laws were added that restricted speech that insulted national symbols, particularly the flag and the national anthem.
This is obviously an attempt to test the constitution. In Mexico the flag is almost considered sacred. This is pretty much the same as burning flags in the U.S. and you have to decide which value is bigger. Freedom of speech of the the flag.
Why, when people are accused of being overly sensitive an icon like the flag or the image of the king, etc, does someone come along and say "The ___ is almost sacred to the ___ people."?
