I Criticize Something I Found on the Internet - Episode 1

I want to know the point this article is trying to make. It says we feel entitled to knowledge. He then goes on to describe events that, had they taken place pre-internet era, might not have been noticed by the world. Or incidents where the dissemination of information actually was the event.

He implies that it's wrong to have this feeling of entitlement, but he never really explains why. I think there's actually a lot of merit to the idea that we are entitled to knowledge, and I intend to write reams about that in the coming weeks and months*, but I caught something in this article that gave me pause. The author didn't actually make the point I'm bringing up, and I'm not sure he himself caught this point. But I think it might be the best selling point against our entitled feelings toward knowledge.

The poor raped 5-year old girl who may never get her anonymity back. The father who will constantly be reminded that he killed a man with his bare hands in a fit of rage. The journalist raped in Libya whose video was used as a rallying point for activists. Victims 1-10 in the Sandusky trial. I think the author lost sight of the fact that these are the pressing figures in these cases. In each case, there's an episode of loss of control in the victim's life, and that feeling of powerlessness threatens to be perpetuated by the online community.

The question in my mind is whether or not this media exposure of the victimized is necessarily a bad thing. What happens to these people? I would like to think that it turns out to be a net positive... that good people reach out to help the victim heal. That other victims of similar situations reach out and diminish the feelings of isolation. That weakness is transmuted into strength through the shedding of light.

But that hasn't been the case for Erin Andrews. And I'm guessing that other publicized victims have had rough gos of it as well... the internet is a harsh, cynical place. If the internet exacerbates victimhood, is there anything we can do about it? Sadly, it's been a while since I posted anything and I wanted to post something even though I didn't have the time to put in more than cursory research (I was cherry-picking games in LA all weekend while so many pros are/were in Vegas for the WSOP). But be on alert, because this thing is a thing I'm gonna do some things with.

 EDIT: This is sort of a counterpoint, in that she finds the spotlight to be healing, though it's not really the same since she had control over the dissemination of the information.

* As some of you know, I'm planning on writing a novel centered around a thought experiment called Radical Transparency. I want to explore what happens in a world where everything we say and do is captured and documented and rendered retrievable by all other people through a comprehensive search engine. In other words, the complete eradication of privacy. I'll explore many of these concepts on my blog as well.