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http://www.lockergnome.com/greaterworld/2011/01/13/using-facebook-to-show-amber-alerts/
When I first saw this, it was in an announcement on television stating that the alerts would be shown on Facebook, to which my daughter, sitting right beside me, stated, “They are going to take all the fun out of it for everyone, making it all ‘newsy’.”
Well, after a small chuckle from me, she settled back in to doing some homework and no more was thought of it. Until now, as I am reading about this in a CNN piece, showing a couple of things.
The very first is that television news has gotten so bad that it is a wonder that the American public knows anything – since we’ve been told that they are too lazy to read the paper, can’t deal with news on public television, because it is too dry, and refuse to watch any of the other really good news programs on the tube, from the France 24 shown on some PBS stations, to the BBC News America Edition, also on PBS, but seen on some standard television stations as another source.
With all those sources, you might think they could get away from the 23-minutes-because we-have-to-have-commercials nightly network news programs that are seen more because of their slickness, rather than their content. (I have it on good authority that some only watch the CBS Evening News to see what Miss Katy is wearing! It’s a total bummer when she is being replaced by Harry Smith.) It was one of those that gave my daughter the pinion that the alerts would simply be pushed content, on everyone’s pages, whether they liked it or not.
It also shows why those shows are so vacuous. They hardly ever give the full story.
Facebook amber alerts will be opt in, so those wishing to “keep having fun” exclusively, can stop worrying and get on with their activities. The full take on this is that they have always been available by going to the law enforcement Facebook pages; to many, that these have previously existed will be huge news as well. Others, perhaps a little more interested in what is happening outside of the ultra-locality of their closest friends, can get an eye on a few things that can help humanity in general, and only take up a smidgeon of their time on the place where minds go to die.
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