Ferguson, USA: Trial by Social Media & Regular Media in this Information Age

Last updated on 19th August 2014

As I have been in the Information Technology field from the mid-80s I have heard the term, "Information Age", being bandied about many times over the past decades. However, I think the term has become a really valid term in recent years.

The events unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri, USA show the power of social media with regular TV and print media (including their websites) playing catch-up but also doing the vital function of verification prior to airing/printing, to influence people and events. The government/police sources are simply not trusted by people at large, unless they are backed with solid evidence like video clips which the public can easily see and verify! Social media especially when backed with video clips has become an awesome force to reckon with.

Wikipedia already has five accounts of what happened in the altercation between the police officer and Michael Brown!!! Here's the wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown. Four are witness accounts and one is the police account. Three of the witness accounts on wikipedia, in effect, charge the officer with overdoing the shooting even when Michael Brown was in subdued/surrendered kind-of state, with a fatal result. With the latest info. being released about an independent autopsy report by a leading medical examiner mentioning six shots hitting Brown's body who was unarmed, very few people will give much value to the police account as mentioned currently in wikipedia, as it gives very little info. about the shooting.

The Ferguson police chief released the video footage showing a strong-arm robbery which was allegedly committed by Brown prior to this incident. If you have not seen the video clip you may want to look at it here, Ferguson police release convenience store surveillance video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbPbX76cOVQ, 3 min 4 secs published on Aug. 15th 2014. It has two surveillance camera clips. In the first, at around 1:18 you can see the store clerk trying to block a tall & hefty person (Brown allegedly) from exiting the store. This person pushes the store clerk out of the way and threateningly advances towards the retreating but protesting store clerk (the store clerk looks like an Indian sub-continent person - Indian, Bangladeshi or Pakistani). In the second surveillance camera clip, you can see the same event from another limited angle from around 2:50.

The release of the video clip inflamed passions in Ferguson which seems to have resulted in the rioting, which had been brought under control by an African-American led Highway Patrol force, flaring up again. The rioters targeted this particular store and looted it.

The Governor of the state (Missouri), Jay Nixon, regretted that the police chief released this video at this stage. It seems that the impression it created among many was that the police were selectively sharing information which tarnished the character of the victim while at the same time not sharing much information about how the police officer shot Brown. BTW it seems that the police chief spoke about this strong-arm robbery video clip at the same time that he revealed the name of the police officer, Darren Wilson.

I also heard the police chief talking about perceptions becoming reality implying that the media were not telling the full story. While many may disagree with me, I think the police chief had to support his man. That's the way life is nowadays, though it has been that way but to a lesser extent in the past too, not only in the USA, but in many countries around the world, including India. Death threats are being made against Wilson who has moved to a hidden place and would surely be under police protection. Wilson's home is also under police protection.

I guess social media along with mainstream media have already passed judgement on this case, without hearing the story of the officer, Wilson. The damage caused to the officer's life and his reputation by this social and mainstream media trial judgement must be terrible. Even if during the legal trial, Wilson and his lawyers put up an effective defense case, and so Wilson is not held guilty of overdoing the shooting part leading to a fatality, I don't think that will reverse this immense damage done to Wilson as well as the reputation of Ferguson police force.

Of course, I must also mention that nothing will bring back the life of the young Michael Brown who would have had great plans for his life. The suffering to his family must be immense. It is an unmitigated tragedy that a teenager lost his life in this fashion, and if the officer involved is guilty then he must face the consequences.

BTW today morning CNN International was showing the military style operation implementing the second night of curfew in Ferguson, live. This live coverage went on for more than half an hour. Even CNN-IBN (Indian channel) had shown some of the Ferguson unrest clips yesterday. So Ferguson is hot international news as I type in this post.

In this Information Age, it is vital for all kinds of organizations - business, governmental including police, charitable trusts, spiritual and religious organizations etc. - to understand social media and use it effectively to quickly put out its side of the story whenever there are any negative charges made on it. Otherwise the lack of response from them on social media may result in a social media led public perception that the negative charges made against them are true. Undoing this public perception later on, even if it is a false perception, may turn out to be very difficult/impossible. I mean, on social media, people's attention span seems to be small. The judgement would be made by the social media public and then they would move on to other topics losing interest in revisiting the earlier topic.

19th Aug. 2014: Please note that I made small modifications to this post a few times since it was first published to make corrections and also make it more accurate based on what I have read so far.