Alan Is Good

A 17-year-old girl called 911 to help her father, who was having a very bad seizure at their home in Lincoln Park, Michigan.  In a panic, she says, “What the f***!” because her call wasn’t going through.  911 recordings begin when the caller is dialing, so the station heard her remark.  

Well, a very upstanding, old fashioned and honorable officer of the ‘law’ curses back at her and disconnects her call!  She calls back; he belittles her a bit more, and drags this on for another 6 minutes, while her father is suffering on the floor of their home.  When he finally calls the fire department, his version of the story paints her as a hostile caller.  

One last part – she rushes to the station a few blocks away to confront the cop IRL and she gets arrested and detained!  Check the video below:

Usually there’s at least a 70/30 split and two different sides to a story, but not here!  I’ve argued against online censorship in the past, but IRL censorship in emergency situations is a f***ing joke.  I’m glad that we live in the age of the internet for situations like this one.  This kind of injustice and law enforcement abuse of power has been happening for hundreds of years now, and it has left thousands of people frustrated, helpless and even dead – because the buck has always stopped with the law.  Imagine this situation happening in the 60s – no one would hear the girl’s story, she would feel frustrated and depressed with the world, and have a serious lack of respect for every cop she ever met.  

The internet, new media journalists and digital public relations have changed all of this.  No one wants negative press bestowed upon their station, business or establishment – and nowadays people are witnessing, video cameras are watching and tape recorders are rolling, ready to archive the misbehavior of a**holes with power.   

The cop will no doubt be harassed and the station will have a tough time dealing with the negative PR.  Even though he will probably keep his job, there’s a solid black eye on his career for a while.  Digital justice prevails.  Here’s an internet acronym palindrome that I think sums things up:

WTF FTW!

Enter: Cisco Fatty

This week, the Cisco Fatty was born.  This girl applied for a job with Cisco, and apparently they made her an offer.  Then she goes and updates her Twitter profile with this: 

“Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”

Of course, someone with Cisco sees her update, and replied to her – on Twitter.

“Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.”

Laugh, laugh.  Get it all out.  You can see what everyone is saying about the Cisco Fatty in the Twitter Search results for – of course, Cisco+fatty.  The story is spreading quickly, and it will reach ‘meme‘ status in no time.  Someone even made a quick blog in her honor just to make sure she cries about this, at http://ciscofatty.com.   She made her Twitter updates private, but Twitter search archives all.  Long live the Cisco Fatty.  

Social Media Censorship

I’m not a fan of this growing wave of censorship in social media.  It’s interesting to see how it affects different people across various industries.  Here are a few cases I’ve seen recently:

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