"We omit names and faces of the authors because we have no intention of exposing anyone. We just want to educate people so that in future they think about the consequences before posting racist comments,"
This is always the same thing, educating people, make them realize that comments have consequences, etc. But, at the end of the day, does it ever work? I mean if someone makes racist comments that's because they're racist, they're racist in a world where racism is daily condemned, how can a billboard change that?
All these campaigns against racism, domestic violence, etc. Do they ever yield any result?
Would you still wish that if someone posted racist comments using a fake account under your name, with your picture?
Even a true picture can give rise to cases of mistaken identity. Someone who looks a lot like you could appear on a billboard, and people who see you out in public assume it's you from your face.
That isn't logically inconsistent, i.e. "if you don't want things associated with your name forever, don't put them on the internet under your name". If someone posts racist bile under a pseudonym, it also won't be associated with his or her name.
kazinator's comment is the real issue with that idea, I think.
> "We omit names and faces of the authors because we have no intention of exposing anyone.
The big reason you shouldn't publish names and faces (even if you otherwise want to) is because you have not verified their authenticity; you can be gamed into acting as the unwitting tool in some smear campaign whereby an innocent victim is made to look like a racist.
This might* backfire. I can just imagine the race among immature teenagers to say the most offensive things they can dream up in hopes of getting their words on a nearby billboard.
This campaign follows the same format as many promotions asking you to tweet about product X, with the best tweets going up in Times Square. The goal of course, being to make more tweets about product X.
So you're giving attention seekers (read, a lot of trolls) a way to get even more attention for saying the most horrible things they can think of.
Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to work well? Seems like a pretty good marketing strategy actually, especially if your product/service relates to freedom of speech, censorship, harassment or something else and you can stick a link in at the end of the tweet.
I also wonder how the hell they try and verify where anyone actually lives, given the existence of proxies and other such devices. Seems like it could be very easily 'abused' to frame someone else, especially if you know it could cause a falling out between them and someone they're close to.
And on a funnier note... good deal for bilboard owners. Flame the hell out of people on Twitter, then jack the prices up a few hundred times and watch a charity pay to put your angry messages up in the street...
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 19.2 ms ] threadThis is always the same thing, educating people, make them realize that comments have consequences, etc. But, at the end of the day, does it ever work? I mean if someone makes racist comments that's because they're racist, they're racist in a world where racism is daily condemned, how can a billboard change that?
All these campaigns against racism, domestic violence, etc. Do they ever yield any result?
Even a true picture can give rise to cases of mistaken identity. Someone who looks a lot like you could appear on a billboard, and people who see you out in public assume it's you from your face.
kazinator's comment is the real issue with that idea, I think.
The big reason you shouldn't publish names and faces (even if you otherwise want to) is because you have not verified their authenticity; you can be gamed into acting as the unwitting tool in some smear campaign whereby an innocent victim is made to look like a racist.
This campaign follows the same format as many promotions asking you to tweet about product X, with the best tweets going up in Times Square. The goal of course, being to make more tweets about product X.
*by might, I mean will
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/04/2...
Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to work well? Seems like a pretty good marketing strategy actually, especially if your product/service relates to freedom of speech, censorship, harassment or something else and you can stick a link in at the end of the tweet.
I also wonder how the hell they try and verify where anyone actually lives, given the existence of proxies and other such devices. Seems like it could be very easily 'abused' to frame someone else, especially if you know it could cause a falling out between them and someone they're close to.
And on a funnier note... good deal for bilboard owners. Flame the hell out of people on Twitter, then jack the prices up a few hundred times and watch a charity pay to put your angry messages up in the street...