The Times They Are a Changin'

I'm up early. The birds woke me before the garbage truck - which came later, at 5:00. They must've been up again on an all night cocaine bender; night owls. A lady I'm currently courting has identified me as a writer of sorts. Somehow, through my fumbling articulations over text message, she's seen through my shortcomings. I write, I told her, often; and often poorly. But sometimes, amidst my wasteland of garbage and fetid mediocrity, a pearl doth shine. There's still plenty of time to let her down. Just wait til she sees my 1-inch killer.

A new form of social media emerged yesterday. It's group-based live streaming, provided by an app called Periscope. Its potential to impact the way we ingest social media is staggering. In an instant, every person in the world becomes a reporter, documentary film-maker, or armchair talk-show host capable of making a meaningful contribution. Some questioned the usefulness of such an application, drawing attention to the general narcissistic banality and frivolous voyeurism the app will invariably perpetuate. This isn't a well formed critique of the service though. It's a critique generated by the lazy and unimaginative. Let me explain. Just hours after the app went live there was an explosion in the East Village of New York. I was unaware, in the middle of a conversation with colleagues in San Francisco, when my phone went off: Explosion in New York. I swiped the notification and was brought to the app. I saw live footage of smoke and people running, police pulling onto the scene trying to secure the perimeter, general confusion and chaos. The broadcaster explained, after the 300+ people viewing the feed began asking what was happening, that moments ago a loud explosion shook the ground and the building was up in smoke. I was right there on the scene before reporters were; before the firetrucks. I texted my family still living in New York and they were unaware of the story. I continued to watch as the story unfolded organically from the scene, a kind of grass roots journalism. Bits and pieces of facts were tied together, culled from jumping from stream to stream, and I had a pretty good idea of what had happened before my family did.

There isn't any explaining necessary. This will change the way we ingest news forever.

It even serves, in an ancillary way, to reduce bias. A live broadcast presents objective facts happening in real time. There is no coloring, just raw video footage. Think of the ramifications for civil protections and individual safety. Police abuse can be broadcast live and unequivocally to the public; criminal acts and suspicious activities can be broadcast to wide audiences at a previously unthinkable speed. We've seen a manifold increase in the degree of immediacy and reach each person has, to the point of bordering on omnipresence. This gives every person with a phone a rape whistle which can be heard around the world. Stream an assailant's face to hundreds of people with the press of a button; capture an assault on public transit; a home invasion; watch a revolution happening right now in a different country, on a different continent, from the streets.

It's important to note that the reverse can also be said. The introduction of this application has, overnight, turned every person with a cellphone into a surveillance camera. We're all one step closer to living in Jeremy Betham's panopticon. The level of hyper-scrutiny this application has introduced should be concerning. It calls into question what we mean by privacy. With great power comes great responsibility. If we fail to properly utilize this tool, the consequences can be disastrous.