I am reminded of a cartoon in my professor's office ages ago on reading this news about violence in Pune. The cartoon was of a scientist stabbing himself in the back and the caption read, "No one else can do a better job".
The sadness of such mob behaviour does not even need the justification that a peaceful society needs tolerance of free speech as a safety valve.
Anyone with even minimal skills can write anything on the web by creating pseudonyms or anonymous posts. The person may be a resident of Timbuktu or may even be a bot designed for flaming.
What does bewilder me is that how does the mob come across such posts? May be the mob leader has set a google alert for them?
For anyone with any doubt about what a bot can do, Turing test passed!
The sadness of such mob behaviour does not even need the justification that a peaceful society needs tolerance of free speech as a safety valve.
Anyone with even minimal skills can write anything on the web by creating pseudonyms or anonymous posts. The person may be a resident of Timbuktu or may even be a bot designed for flaming.
What does bewilder me is that how does the mob come across such posts? May be the mob leader has set a google alert for them?
For anyone with any doubt about what a bot can do, Turing test passed!
"The Turing Test is a vital tool for combatting that threat. It is important to understand more fully how online, real-time communication of this type can influence an individual human in such a way that they are fooled into believing something is true... when in fact it is not." (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10884839/Computer-passes-Turing-Test-for-the-first-time-after-convincing-users-it-is-human.html)
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