RE: Instance of Memetic dissemination

From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 17 Mar 2003 - 10:49:38 GMT

  • Next message: Wade T. Smith: "Re: memetics-digest V1 #1317"

    Hi,

    There's been a short series of TV programmes on the BBC about e-mails just like this that have ended up circling the world a few times. Trying putting Claire Swires into Google and see what comes up.

    Vincent

    > ----------
    > From: Lawrence DeBivort
    > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 2:15 PM
    > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Subject: Instance of Memetic dissemination
    >
    > From a friend...
    >
    > LdB
    >
    >
    > >> Laurie
    > >> Garrett of Newsday -- and author of a great work of contemporary
    > >> history,
    > >> The Coming Plague -- sent this email to a bunch of her friends. It got
    > >> around. Then it got loose. Reportedly she is quite steamed about it, as
    > >> well she might be. But it's been circulated to thousands already...]
    >
    > >From a colleague on the PHIL-LIT list I find out that there
    > is quite alot of analysis and discussion of this e-mail out
    > there. The e-mail, how it spread, and privacy issues which
    > arise, along with lots of links, on LawMeme:
    >
    > Accidental Privacy Spills: Musings on Privacy, Democracy,
    > and the Internet
    > Posted by James Grimmelmann on Wednesday, February 19 @
    > 22:02:50 EST
    >
    > A journalist attends the World Economic Forum and writes her
    > friends an email about the experience. Two weeks later, that
    > email is on the Web, people she's never met are correcting
    > her spelling, and the journalist is vowing to go back to
    > longhand.
    >
    > Welcome to the world of accidental privacy spills. Compared
    > with the problem of keeping personal email private,
    > copyright and spam are easy.
    >
    > Davos was in the last week of January. In the next week, the
    > email apparently circulated among a growing set of Garrett's
    > friends and their friends. By the 6th of February, a copy of
    > the email, by then forwarded several times, stripped of its
    > original headers, and minus her last name, had made its way
    > onto the "PH" mailing list run by the Institute for
    > Psychohistory. And there it crossed the bloodstream, because
    > the PH list is archived on the Web.
    >
    > We all know what happens once something is on the Web. On
    > the 11th of February, the PH archive version of the email
    > was linked from MetaFilter, a links-and-discussion site with
    > strong blog community ties....
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >
    >

    =============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit



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