Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Ghost Tweeters and Advocacy

Over zealous advocates do a giant disservice to legitimate causes. The issue of RF radiation is plagued with such advocates, who may have good intentions but end up bastardizing the truth.


One example was the recent Bloomberg news article, that jumped the gun and made an announcement that they should have waited to make.


An excellent analysis of the announcement by Dr Louis Slesin discusses how the news article makes little sense (one of the few people entrenched in the issue who saw any problem with it). He points out how the information in the article by wasn't appropriately timed. I agree - if the FCC hadn't quite agreed to take the steps that the article purports, this means someone at Bloomberg jumped the gun on publishing it.


Not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, there may be something to be said about people pressuring the governing authority to "do the right thing". I just don't know if this would work with the FCC, given their nonchalance for how the general public perceives them (see Dr Moskowitz' article "Is the FCC going to rubber stamp the exposure standards?")


These are opinions of well-respected doctors, that have worked in the field, and generally had much more life experience than I have. Still, even in my relatively insignificant world, I have spotted similar trends of well-intentioned but obviously deceptive ways of gaining publicity for the issue of cell phone radiation.


For instance, I was followed by a couple people on Twitter today. I'm at less than 200 followers, so that excited me. I went to check who they were, and this is what I found:






They were two young, pretty girls. I have a lot of young, pretty friends! I didn't quite know who they were, so I looked at their profiles:


 


Notice how they both have similar headlines, number of followers and how many people they're both following.


They both tweeted about cellphone radiation-related issues within the last couple days, and probably found me through one of those Tweet-match services.


Now, note that Twitter organizes your followers by the add date. Check out who their followers are:




I am certain a Twnalysis (R) of the accounts of these common followers would yield an uncannily similar trend of bizarre coincidences. I don't know if any data experts have looked into this, and it may be difficult to measure because the number of users on Twitter changes so often, but what is the probability of two unrelated people having this many similarities in they're profile, followers in common and following someone on the same day? Infinitesimally minuscule, at best. My conclusion: These are fake accounts, generated by people to, for some reason, create a "hype" about cell phone radiation. Why would someone want to do that? To sell a product, maybe. To create an illusion of Twitter followers for an organizations page, perhaps. Generally, to distort Twitter information and allow the average person to misconstrue public perception in their favor. I can see why establishing a "buzz on Twitter" is a viable and probably effective social media strategy. I also see the logic in wanting to be perceived as bigger than you are, that is the only way the mouse can stand up to the lion.


The technical problems with these are not something to sneeze at. Twitter is the most sophisticated of all social media in recognizing fake accounts. They devote a lot of resources and manpower to keeping Twitter fake-free. Just like Google rolling out Panda, which hit hard the syndicate blogging "industry", any insubstantial changes in the algorithm Twitter uses to detect these accounts could cost the parties responsible their "followers", in turn costing the general movement this generated publicity. In this way, unless the fake accounts magically lead to real people tweeting about this issue, these fabricated followers will go back to the ether they came from, and the drop in the buzz may be perceived as a lack of an issue to be concerned about. If this seems unlikely, look back at the events of less than half a decade ago. Three companies that embarked on a scare tactic about cell phone radiation generated a massive amount of fear in the public. When they were shut down by FTC for making fraudulent claims, and selling ineffective sham products, the buzz they created died down, and took with it the possibility that the mainstream media and the general public would take this issue seriously. My concern with the fake Twitter accounts is a similar minimization of the issue, by the hands of possibly well-intentioned people.


I feel compelled to state affirmatively that I'm not saying there is no issue about cell phone radiation - I'm convinced there is more to the story than CTIA wants us to believe (and their position is not hardly revolutionary or even atypical: that's what Home Appliances Manufacturers, a similar lobby group for microwaves back in their heyday would have said about space-age cooking devices. Good thing we didn't trust a group whose acronym is HAM). The risk of sperm damage and infertility is very real. The probability that the number of brain tumor cases (especially in people below 30, a group historically deemed to have a very low risk of having tumors) is going to increase in the next half century at least - critics will attribute this to better diagnostics, but better diagnostics wouldn't cause a demographic to see a sudden rise in the incidence rates of a particular disease. Cellphones may be able to act as tumor-promoters, and they certainly function as a scarily effective birth-control method.


The point I hope to make is that propaganda can't be countered by propaganda, because misinformation is unsustainable.


If industry engages in deceptive practices by repressing information or propagating misinformation or junk science, it needs to be corrected and stopped - that is obvious and hopefully a non-partisan view. To some extent, I even understand the concept of "playing their game" by utilizing social media to counter their strategy of belittling an important issue. But we shouldn't rewrite our rules, morph our principles and forego our values to the match the deceit that we criticize in the industry.


The only tool that dispels the darkness of corporate deceit is truth - the creation of a real movement takes time and effort. Changing people's minds is difficult, but advocating changes in their behavior is closer to impossible. An advocate in the field refers to it as "converting" people, because she looks at convincing people of the existing hazard as helping them "find religion". Notwithstanding my disdain for cloaked religious activities, advocating precaution is similar to helping people find Jesus. You're not selling a product or a temporary fix, you're advocating a philosophy. A philosophy that requires people to rethink their worlds, the devices they use and how they use them. As a precaution-advocate, you are charged with the monumental task of convincing people to make a conscious decision about things that they do practically unconsciously (put their phone in their pocket). That's not just hard for the advocate, it's difficult for the person who is hearing that too. This is why it is of utmost importance that social changes at a grand-scale occur organically and evolve naturally and gradually, embodying the awakening and realization that the process entails.


Misinformation can't perpetuate forever. History stands witness to the scores of events where certain information was concealed from the public, but it surfaced. Some later than others, and most too late to prevent the damage inflicted by them, but it emerged from the dusty shelves where the big bad villain tried to hide it. When this happens, society as a whole experiences an epiphany, which is the invaluable beginning of a real social change.


No number of fake Twitter accounts is going to speed up that process. Deceitful practices like this may actually hurt the movement as a whole. Dirty tricks hamper the process of illuminating the public with awareness and information and only delay the creation of a valid and sustainable societal lightbulb moment.

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