Breaking News: BBC Homepage Not Changed At All
It seems sometimes that the internet exists purely to enable people to embarrass themselves faster and more publicly than ever before.
This week we were reminded of this truism by yesterday's (16 June) completely unfounded rumour that the colour of the BBC homepage was set to green as a public statement of solidarity with Iranian opposition, who lost in the recent elections (in case you've been living under a rock). This is not and was never true. The BBC homepage has for some time been designed to change between a selection of colours relative to the content being displayed. The fact that it was coincidentally green yesterday was inexplicably enough to overheat at least one person's imagination.
In the way that these things work nowadays, the mistruth spread from some anonymous corner of Twitter or the blogosphere all over the internet, at the blazing speed enabled by broadband, to reputable blogs and countless re-Tweets and re-postings all over the internet. We can't yet tell when the first authoritative debunking appeared, but it was certainly by the afternoon of 17 June, and a quick glance as of 22:00 on the same day shows only one high-profile retraction, Andrew Sullivan's classy post admitting his mistake (although he has mistakenly fed the idea that the BBC homepage is *always* green). A precious few weren't fooled in the first place. Unfortunately most bloggers appear to have left their various condemning and applauding (mostly condemning) posts up intact, although a handful of retractions and corrections are viewable on Twitter. Looking at the numerous blogs and handful of Twitter posts on the subject yields a sense of the speed at which the rumour must have sped round (at least the English speaking) world, being absorbed and then re-transmitted almost in the same instant.
Regrettably one is also alerted to the lack of sense exhibited by most contributors, and especially the complete lack of intellectual embarrassment by many who repeated the rumours (again, with the exception of Andrew Sullivan as of this time). It is shameful that the ability to start a self-publishing platform is not accompanied by a sense of responsibility to research wild claims (accusing a major international news service of political bias is generally seen as a wild claim), and that there is no clamour or judgement from consumers of this content for greater rigour; or at least the honour to admit mistakes when they've been made. The strength of web self-publishing is its speed and democratic nature, but when its members fail to editorialise or monitor themselves or each other, concerning such a severe charge, it severely undermines the case for blogging and other kinds of informal journalism to win mainstream respectability.
This week we were reminded of this truism by yesterday's (16 June) completely unfounded rumour that the colour of the BBC homepage was set to green as a public statement of solidarity with Iranian opposition, who lost in the recent elections (in case you've been living under a rock). This is not and was never true. The BBC homepage has for some time been designed to change between a selection of colours relative to the content being displayed. The fact that it was coincidentally green yesterday was inexplicably enough to overheat at least one person's imagination.
In the way that these things work nowadays, the mistruth spread from some anonymous corner of Twitter or the blogosphere all over the internet, at the blazing speed enabled by broadband, to reputable blogs and countless re-Tweets and re-postings all over the internet. We can't yet tell when the first authoritative debunking appeared, but it was certainly by the afternoon of 17 June, and a quick glance as of 22:00 on the same day shows only one high-profile retraction, Andrew Sullivan's classy post admitting his mistake (although he has mistakenly fed the idea that the BBC homepage is *always* green). A precious few weren't fooled in the first place. Unfortunately most bloggers appear to have left their various condemning and applauding (mostly condemning) posts up intact, although a handful of retractions and corrections are viewable on Twitter. Looking at the numerous blogs and handful of Twitter posts on the subject yields a sense of the speed at which the rumour must have sped round (at least the English speaking) world, being absorbed and then re-transmitted almost in the same instant.
Regrettably one is also alerted to the lack of sense exhibited by most contributors, and especially the complete lack of intellectual embarrassment by many who repeated the rumours (again, with the exception of Andrew Sullivan as of this time). It is shameful that the ability to start a self-publishing platform is not accompanied by a sense of responsibility to research wild claims (accusing a major international news service of political bias is generally seen as a wild claim), and that there is no clamour or judgement from consumers of this content for greater rigour; or at least the honour to admit mistakes when they've been made. The strength of web self-publishing is its speed and democratic nature, but when its members fail to editorialise or monitor themselves or each other, concerning such a severe charge, it severely undermines the case for blogging and other kinds of informal journalism to win mainstream respectability.
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