This book started off really interesting, with the opening story between Evan and Sasha, and the phone. Shirky really exhibited his point from the first page that technology has taken a new turn and how fast information reach others in this current economy. An underlining theme that Shirky touched on but was not detailed about was the class and race situation. I believe that what Sasha did was wrong, because she should have just returned the lost property to its’ rightful owner. At the same time I do not believe that the situation needed to be taken as fas as Evan took it. As far as race and class, Sasha was a sixteen yr old unwed mother from a Latino background while Evan and Ivanna are much older and are Caucasian. I feel like race def. plays a part because if Sasha was Caucasian as well, I feel there would be a completely different outcome. I also feel like Evan would not have harassed or bothered Sasha as much. I feel as Evan was at fault here as well because he exposed a minor on the Internet. He disclosed much of Sasha’s personal info. on his website, which is illegal since she is underage. In addition, other comments were going up on the wall, like “would you do her” (discussing Sasha in a sexual manner), which could lead one of those readers to thinking about raping Sasha. Which is not far-fetched because even Sasha’s address was put up on the website. Yes, Sasha may have taken a lost phone, but Evan stole Sasha’s privacy. If Sasha was off a higher class, her parents could have easily sued Evan and Ivanna, for invasion of privacy and harassment of a minor. But it was very interesting to see how Evan was able to obtain much of Sasha’s info from her email and myspace page. It just shows how everyone can always be found on a social network, it doesn’t matter how private anyone tries to make their page.
As for chapter 2, I found the Birthday Paradox to be very interesting and true. I seem to have that very same issue I decide to try and plan something with my friends. For some reason, one person can’t come or doesn’t like the time, or doesn’t like where we all go, etc. It gets very frustrating and annoying and eventually we all give up. Which then Shirky goes into the group complexity. This was just two of the theories I was able to relate to in this chapter.
For Chapter 3, I found one of the interesting things to be was the weblogs, especially pertaining to the story of Senator Trent Lott. I feel like Mr. Lott really thought he could get away with his comment and that no one was really going to approach him about it, but he was wrong. The newspapers of course did not cover it at first, but Mr. Lott’s speech was highly discussed over blogs on the Internet. Then from the rapid popularity of the speech, the news started to cover it. I really don’t like how late the news (media) takes to cover certain stories. But that leads many to an important question, which is: Who decides what is the news? Well the people took a stand here and told the media that this topic was important and that Mr. Lott should have never said that. He indeed resigned from his position. If people in general could come together more like in this case, I feel like the world could be a better place. A good current example of this is the KONY campaign 2012. Through social networks, people are fighting out about who Joseph Kony is and are planning on trying to raise awareness and stop this man! The people finally do have a voice, and that is through social networking. Now they just need to organize it.