So there was a shooting last night a few miles from my house

[xokell2]

And a ton of people were posting pictures of the scene, police radio calls, updates, etc.. On the city and my subdivision's Facebook page.  It was like watching it all play out live action. I don't know if I'm impressed or creeped out. 

[Deleted]

I wish people would stop trying to be live reporters three seconds after something happens.

[tine]

scary! glad you're okay. I have mixed feelings about the facebook updates too. One one hand, I'm glad to see what's going on, on the other, I would never post it because I think it's creepy. ha

[v]

Dec 19, 2014 10:59:03 GMT -5 @bluesky said:

Dec 19, 2014 8:24:30 GMT -5 papiercherri said:

I wish people would stop trying to be live reporters three seconds after something happens.

hmm...I see it as helpful, as I will know not to go in the area, and it's nice to know if you are in harms way somehow.  However there are some things that should not be posted.

If it has been going on long enough for their to be pictures, calls, etc. to be posted on social media, I think it is fair to assume that the affected area will have blockades.

I get creeped out by stuff like this.  Particularly because it seems to usually come from a place of tragedy whoring/one-upmanship/I-saw-it-first-manship rather than to actually be helpful.

[Deleted]

Dec 19, 2014 10:59:03 GMT -5 @bluesky said:

Dec 19, 2014 8:24:30 GMT -5 papiercherri said:

I wish people would stop trying to be live reporters three seconds after something happens.

hmm...I see it as helpful, as I will know not to go in the area, and it's nice to know if you are in harms way somehow.  However there are some things that should not be posted.

Then that person could simply say something like "XYZ area is closed due to an incident."

But most people who take pictures and all that jazz aren't doing it as a form
of public service. They're doing it because they're nosy attention whores.

And I think it's an even bigger problem when we have tragedies on a national level, with all kinds of morons "reporting" their false assumptions and misinformation about an incident, and then even more morons jumping on the bandwagon and believing everything they read on the interwebs. This issue actually enrages me.

[jinkies]

We had a police incident in my town this week. Someone murdered their ex-wife's entire family in a nearby town, and someone claimed (I think it was later determined to be a hoax) that they were car-jacked by the suspect in my town. Police/SWAT teams descended, and the rumors were INSANE.

People were listening to the police scanners and then posting where the searches were happening in real-time on Facebook, rumors started circulating that the suspect cut off the car-jack victims fingers, that shots were fired, that the suspect was seen in a no fewer than 3 different makes/models of vehicles driving in different directions in different areas on a specific stretch of road.

None of it was true. The guy offed himself behind his house, probably shortly after the initial murders, in an area 30 minutes away from my town.

It created this crazy hysteria (people kept their kids home from school the next day over this), and I agree with v 's assessment that it was coming from a place of tragedy whoring/one-upmanship/I-saw-it-first-manship rather than to actually be helpful.

I don't understand the desire to insert yourself into such a tragedy.

[imojoebunny]

I wish people had been around when the crazy in the article below killed a lady randomly less than a mile from my house a few weeks ago. The fourth person he killed in a matter of weeks. Maybe if more people were being Facebook's asshats, he would have been caught after the first guy.

www.decaturish.com/2014/12/suspected-serial-killer-allegedly-confessed-to-decatur-murder/