Responses to Crowd sourcing Blogs

Crowd sourcing and social media has been a popular phenomenon in recent major news cases, and also in day to day activities. Crowd sourcing can be both a good thing and a bad thing when it comes to social media. Katie Gatto and Miranda Johnson make some interesting points when it comes to crowd sourcing.

https://annkgatto.wordpress.com/

http://mmjohnson341.blogspot.com/

Katie argues in her blog that crowd sourcing is a good thing because it has helped find missing people, identify murder victims, and it can help solve crimes. This has been true in some major headliners in recent years. Crowd sourcing helped identify a nameless murder victim known as "Grateful Doe" after 20 years. Crowd sourcing has also helped identify suspects of crimes. Security cameras have caught people stealing, and these pictures and videos are then released on social media and then someone is able to give the suspect a name. In these cases crowd sourcing on social media made a positive impact in society. However, crowd sourcing is not always a reliable way to acquire information. A large group of people that are not being paid, little experience are not always a reliable source. Information and facts can be turned into opinion really quick. For example, a group on 4Chan were convinced they identified the Boston Bomber from pictures posted on different forms of social media because this man was wearing a backpack. 4Chan falsely identified and accused this man and in return the man received a large amount of scrutiny including being interrogated by police. In this case, crowd sourcing made a great disservice to society.

Miranda makes a good point in her blog, that crowd sourcing makes it really hard for you to have any privacy in your life. Your crazy girlfriend that is cyber stalking you can find you really quickly with social media and crowd sourcing. The popular drama series Gossip Girl is a perfect example of how crowd sourcing can have a negative effect on society. Going to the grocery store can be misinterpreted when people do not have all the facts or provide unreliable information.

Crowd sourcing, like many other components of social media can be both positive and negative. The internet in general has this recurring theme. When people do not abuse the powers of the internet, social media and the world wide web can be a pretty cool thing. However, some people take advantage and abuse this tool and can cause some major damage in society.