I have to admit…
I was amazed at all the noise around the events surrounding the disapearance of flight AF 447.
Ok. Let me get this straight. I was about as curious as the next guy to understand what happened. So I looked around a bit, and eventually search for the #af447 hashtag on twitter.
About 30% of the posts were basically : don’t follow or click on any hyperlink proposed by @flightaf447 – because he is making money on the tragedy !
Now… Wait a minute !
A *load* of people are making money on this. News providers wouldn’t even exist if threadful things didn’t happen !
Granted, this particular individual probably isn’t offering any new information – mind it that ANY new information is probably out the door WAY before it appears on a mainstream news broadcast.
But now.. Everyone if focussing on that (and – shame on me – I’m meta-focussing)
And let’s put this into perspective. ~228 (presumably at the time of writing) lost their lives aboard a transportation mechanism – namely a scheduled passenger carrying air transport service.
People die in car crashes (no news here).. People die in wars (any *list* of Darfur casualties anyone ?). People die of diseases and people die of old age (again.. does any one have a list of casualties.. oh wait.. the passenger list is 6 billion people long !)
What I am getting to is :
- People focus on scam attempts (is it jealousy ? basically.. How come didn’t I think of it first !)
- People forget that scavenging is a lucrative business !
- People lose focus on numbers/proportions (yes.. 228 – or whatever the number – is sad business. But a WHOLE LOT more die everyday – and believe me – their families are in as much pain)
Sure, people die in cars, wars etc. All said, all leave people with grief, but still the fact is today died 228 people instantly. One second they are here, next they are gone.
Just close your eyes for one moment and try to visualize what happend up there, lightning struck, blackout, turbulence, all gone!
You can’t convice me that does not effect you? And why we not Twitter about Darfur? Not enough information to Twitter perhaps, because terrorist attacks in Mumbai were. There were we have first hand input, we will Twitter!
That’s not the issue ! (or I don’t think it is).
Of course, it *IS* a tragedy – ANY people dying or being hurt is !
And of course, I’ve identified myself with those people – oh so many nightmares have I had of dying in such horrendous conditions.
But nonetheless, I still put forth that the way it is handled is *NOT* appropriate.
What I am saying is that corporate news giants are just playing the sensitive string of people. CNN makes headlines of it.. Why ? 228 people died (presumably) on a “Air France” flight !
A plane crashes in Indonesia ? 100 people dead ? who cares ? (mind it, it happened 10 days ago.. and NOBODY talked about it !).. No twitter praise. No-one listening to songs to remember the fallen..
And when 30% of the tweets are about how wicked some individual is about trying to make some money out of it (ok – rest assured – I *do* not condone this !) – when the news corps and twitter itself is making millions thanks to the misfortune of a few…
Just my take on it..