Logging Off

 

I am losing patience with this macabre scorekeeping, in which participants on opposite sides of the political spectrum try to tell us which side is guilty of more mass shootings or high-profile assassinations. The important score is the total number of victims, and it’s sad that Charlie Kirk had to be added to it, no matter what you think of his politics. But TV host Bill Maher raises an important point: Many of the perpetrators of these crimes are not on anyone’s team, so to speak, as they are usually lone wolves with their own set of motivations and delusions.

But the next part of this game is fixing blame on an institution. Is it social media, which the governor of Utah called a “cancer?” He then urged us to log off.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with social media. They offer us human connection. But I do think many humans just can’t use them responsibly. It’s the easy access to an audience that drives some to use social media for good or ill, and it seems like the latter is winning.

But if users are having trouble acting responsibly, how about those running these companies? Their platforms’ algorithms are good at activating users. But are they dividing us by sparking rage against the “other side”? And what can we do about it?

Logging off is a start, but for how long? If a majority of users logged off for one day, they would send a message to the social media companies to change their ways. If the log-off period were longer, the message would be louder, and might even impact them financially. But would there be real change?

There is always the nuclear option: the repeal of Section 230, which currently protects the social media giants, and their users, from legal liability for what is published. The protection was useful in earlier days, but if those running these platforms aren’t able to control what they have created, repeal of 230 may be the only way to tame these tigers. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but it may have to.

In the meantime, there’s a danger that if we all log off, we will tune out too – not good, at a time when it’s vital that we all stay engaged with what’s going on out there.

 

Is Listening In...Now Out?

 

Some may remember the old TV show “Car 54, Where Are You?” The city of Oakland has now joined some other California jurisdictions that are encrypting police radio calls, which means that the location of Car 54 is none of the public’s business anymore.

I worked for decades as a radio station news director in Southern California. Not long after I moved away, I learned that my former home city had signed on to a regional encrypted communications system. There, anyone at home with a radio scanner can no longer hear their local police traffic. Have listeners been deprived of a public right?

For me, the answer had always been an unequivocal YES. The scanner in our newsroom was a critical piece of equipment when major incidents occurred that required police response, and we made sure that our own listeners, many of whom were taxpayers, were kept in the know as we followed up on those stories. In the case of a fatal traffic accident, a jewelry store holdup, or a school shooting, the public needs the information.

The California Department of Justice hasn’t mandated encryption, but has directed police agencies to prevent confidential criminal justice material and personal identifiable information from disclosure in radio transmissions. Police departments have found that total encryption is the simplest way to meet this standard. Plus, it’s argued that the safety of police officers is at risk if listener access continues. State Senator Josh Becker has authored legislation to fight the total encryption trend in the interest of public transparency, but so far, his effort have been unsuccessful.

These days, I can see both sides. If I were a police officer on patrol, I might wonder if being “live on the air “has anything to do with my job, which is enforcing the law. Does the public really need to hear my every move in “making the sausage,” so to speak? In many jurisdictions, officers are required to wear body cameras, so they’re already making videos of their performance, just not live ones.

The scanner isn’t completely silent, though. Even in areas where police calls are encrypted, fire department traffic typically is not, so the public still can listen to firefighters responding to incidents. And in the modern world, there are many other electronic means of communicating vital public safety information.

If it were up to me, I would allow routine police patrol channels to be open to listeners, or at least give news media such access. Many police departments can easily switch to encrypted channels in sensitive situations. There is room for compromise here, but whatever side you’re on, I guess that in the end, what’s most important is how the sausage comes out.