Is it an OPINION or is it a COMMERCIAL???  

If you’ve been reading my blog you’ll see I talk about the past and how ever- advancing technology affects more and more people as it… well, as it advances.     So how do we know the difference between information from UGC (user generated content) and PAID FOR content (commercials!) that are obviously biased?

What’s    TRUE?            What’s   REAL?   

      What’s RIGHT?             What’s WRONG?

Seems the FTC  (Federal Trade Commission) has some pretty strong rules and regulations about that.  In a recent (Apr 3, 2014) online article, footnoted below, the FTC wrote a letter to shoe retailer Cole Haan about their Pinterest contest, saying they wanted viewers to know contestants were participating due to prize money….   In other words, participants submissions were “tainted” by the $1,000 contest purse so their postings weren’t  “pure” opinion.  The FTC wants added disclosure requirements but gave no guidelines.  Tsk, tsk.   

OMG!  This happened to me in 1986 as I worked for the creator of a new national cable TV show, “What’s New” and before we could even air the FTC jumped down our throats saying this “pay-for-play” TV was misleading the public and Entertainment Tonight helped slam us on national TV.  

What this meant was if you aired a product or service on your TV show that bought their way on you must disclose that… which we did, and (btw) ET was also doing.

What happened next?   Soon to come was the INFOMERICAL which no one had yet heard of….  And we were trailblazers.

“Believe only half of what you see and nothing of what you hear” is an old adage, but who said it?   I couldn’t remember but a Google search gave credit to both Edgar Allan Poe and Benjamin Franklin!  So, what’s true?  Who cares, I say.  It’s a good adage and for me, means ‘buyer beware, user beware, reader beware, viewer beware’.  

So how do I look at UGC?  How do I know what’s true?  I question authority, do my own research, asks lots of questions, verify sources, and use my gut instincts.    Everything I watch or read or hear came from someone… pauper or President, and some of the best, life-changing info I’ve found recently has come from chat rooms.

Larry Lessing’s TED Talk illustration about the common sense legal use of airspace by airplanes flying over chickens on the ground is an excellent over-all example of how all of our realities (and, thus laws and regulations) are changed by advancing technologies.

Ask questions.  Use common sense.  Everything is UGC and I love it!

http://www.adlawbyrequest.com/2014/04/articles/regulators/ftc-has-user-generated-content-on-the-run/

IMAGINE…. in 1721……   Benjamin Franklin's brother, James, published the first U.S. newspaper and one of his articles (even though he used the pen name of 'Silence Dogood') led to his imprisonment when he declined to reveal the author's identity.  Franklin took over this paper and influenced journalism for another 100 years.    A very rough form of a social media network …. the first U.S. newspaper.  We all know about that and the impact it had.

In 1965……..  the idea of war changed my generation with the first televised war….  Vietnam.    The U.S. Pentagon charged Morley Safer, the CBS Evening News correspondent, with staging a horrible event:  U.S. marines using cigarette lighters to burn civilian huts in a search-and-destroy operation in the village of Cam Ne.  Television showed us the real horrors of war like never before.  TV was our social network then.

Arab Spring….. 2011…..  Even though the Egyptian government shut down the internet for FIVE DAYS the social media, 18-day protest and outcry to the world on Facebook and Twitter forced Hosni Mubarak to resign his THIRTY YEAR presidency.   This is probably one of the most profound ways I've seen a SM site affect the world and especially Egypt.

Today's social media is stunning!  In this week's CSU Social Media class, we're learning about online privacy (actually, the lack of it), what that means, and how we can be more savvy with our own social media profiles.  We are also learning what social capital means.

Social media sites can have radical effects (like the example above using Facebook in Cairo, Egypt in 2011) and then there are those many times I surf my FB wasting hours on neighbors gossip!   It's all in how you use them.

I helped a fellow filmmaker put his extraordinary documentary at Sundance Film Festival several years ago, but more importantly, splashed the trailer about the Rwanda AVP workshop (his docu) all over my FB helping raise funding for a similar docu about Kenya.  The trailer, ICYIZERE: hope has a link below.

For now, the internet is an important part of my daily life.  Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites --  not so much.   However, I do value their use in social capital as a social, political, and cultural tool and influence and hope to learn more about using them.   Looking forward to it.

So, ciao4Niao ~!~   j U



ICYZERE: hope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAN_-Ylpjuw

Yes, it IS September 10, 2014 !!!

I began this blog 6 years ago to talk about movie-making, unconventional ideas, people & projects & peculiarities in my life and how my life is always playing out for me.

Just last week I posted to my Social Media class at CSU-Chico, an idea for a blog……
  ………..(The Crack 'O Noon) ……

….. and I'm right on track.   I've always been reaching, grabbing, relishing, and sometimes stomping into the ground (!) ideas, adventures, and people.   So, I begin again this same adventure as I awake at:

….  T h e    C r a c k   'O    N o o n …..


….  and I will keep my original blog title:

             JUDY  UTAH  

So, welcome!   Let's fly!

This blog is to explore my life.   My encounters, thoughts, adventures, professors, friends and foes, ups and downs, and make sense out of them, mathematically convert them to better feelings thoughts and ideas (~ I'll share my secret of how to do that)  ….. and get smack dab in the middle of my life.    If I stray to the outskirts in frivolous petticoats, or sit squalid in a wet trench-coat dripping or spitting complaints….. PLEASE PULL MY CHAIN!

My intent is to ask the all pervading questions:   Why Am I Here and How Much Fun Will I Have NOW?

Let the Adventure Begin ~ ~ ~