Losing a Sidekick

In the book about participation I'm reading for class, I found an interesting paragraph about the pros and cons of our new way of connecting ourselves, as demonstrated in the story I linked to earlier (here it is again).  Briefly recapped, a woman lost her phone in a cab, a teenage girl picked it up and used it as her own.  When the rightful owner tried to get it back, the teenage girl was exceptionally rude.  A friend of the original owner posted their story online, and within a few weeks, he had over a million visitors to his website.  People used social networking sites and other resources, on- and off-line, to locate the girl and get all of her information, which they posted to the website.  In the end, because of the media and web attention the story was getting, the NYPD was eventually persuaded to arrest the girl and the phone was returned to the original owner, despite originally deciding their officers' time could be better spent elsewhere.

The Sidekick--Not exactly the cutting edge anymore,
but in '06 it was pretty expensive.

In his book, Clay Shirky points out that this is a very exceptional case; we can't *all* get worked up every time someone loses a phone.  It's also a new kind of experience; just five or so years earlier, neither the tools nor the social structures that the man used to get the phone back were in place.  However, in spite of these obviously unique elements, this is a great example of what our new systems are capable of.  But is that good for us?

First, we have to recognize that whether this is a good event or a bad event is a very subjective question.  For Ivanna (the original owner), the story is mostly good, because she got her phone back.  For her friend, it's a good thing as well, because he was able to use his social network, and his sense of justice and outrage at the mistreatment of his friend were adequately answered.  For the girl, her boyfriend, and her family (who got dragged into the mess when she did), there isn't much good about this story at all. Sure, taking a phone isn't great behavior, but "who could have known that she was picking up a phone that had a million people at the other end?" (I didn't come up with that, it's in the book) Did she really deserve the ire of a million-person audience, with all their nasty commentary and invasions of privacy?  Or an arrest out of the blue?  Maybe, or maybe not.

Steal a phone...we're coming.

From the book:

"And what about us? What about the society in which this tug-of-war was happening? For us the picture isn’t so clear. The whole episode demonstrates how dramatically connected we’ve become to one another. It demonstrates the ways in which the information we give off about our selves, in photos and e-mails and MySpace pages and all the rest of it, has dramatically increased our social visibility and made it easier for us to find each other but also to be scrutinized in public. It demonstrates that the old limitations of media have been radically reduced, with much of the power accruing to the former audience. It demonstrates how a story can go from local to global in a heartbeat. And it demonstrates the ease and speed with which a group can be mobilized for the right kind of cause. But who defines what kind of cause is right?"

Shirky, Clay (2009-02-24). Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (pp. 11-12). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition. 

That isn't a tweethis, yet.  But it's getting close.  There's definitely discussion that needs to happen, about where this tremendous force goes and what it does, and who is in charge.  I'll be posting later, but for now, I'll close with a question:

Who defines what kind of cause gets worked on by individuals and groups?  Who should?