Spike Lee in the Twitter Cage

The Net and the Risks of its Immediacy

The African-American filmmaker Spike Lee reveals, via Twitter, the address of the alleged killer of a black boy in Florida and, for a few hours, becomes the hero of a brave anti-racism campaign. But the address disclosed by the author of "Malcolm X" and "25th hour" was not George Zimmerman’s – the 28-year-old white* man accused of killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26. Instead, the address was that of two peaceful retirees, Elaine and David McClain, whose only crime is having a 41-year son who uses the surname “Zimmerman,” the same name of the person under investigation, and who is on bail for murder. Zimmerman is a popular name in the U.S. Bob Dylan’s real name is Robert Zimmerman.

The case of Martin Trayvon has divided America. President Obama has stated, "If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Zimmerman, a law student** and neighborhood watch leader, says he shot Martin in self-defense, after being attacked by the hoodie-wearing youth. The garment has become a symbol of protest, worn by deputies, sportsmen, students.

Nobody has taken up the cause like Spike Lee. On Twitter, a social network that allows you to exchange instant messages with your community, “@spikelee” – his handle – has begun insulting white racists and retweeting their messages. As in the live messages broadcast during Radio Radicale’s*** call-in segment back in the '80s, the portrait has emerged of a county where racism, violence and stereotypes thrive in the years of Obama, the first African-American president.

But the director’s grotesque mistake was the utter carelessness with which he exposed an elderly couple to potential protests and reprisals. As a result, the McClains fled to a hotel for their own safety. “I have a heart condition and high blood pressure, and this has just skyrocketed it," David McClain confessed to CNN. Lee’s mistake reopens reflection on how social networking sites, such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest, should be used in political protests and for civil rights. In a world where professional journalism, the political mediation of parties and even the fluid organization of movements with a leader have all ceded to the “all and now” style of communication offered by the Web, how can citizens’ privacy be protected? How can we avoid allowing common sense and reasoning to fall prey to populism and petty revenge?

Among all the new media, Twitter, a service that allows you to either post text-based “tweets” of no more than 140 character or to follow the tweets of intellectuals, politicians, artists and friends, best lends itself to information and mobilization campaigns. It enables its users to think, inform themselves and learn, but it has no filters. In the past, Spike Lee would have called his press secretary to say, "I have an idea. Why don’t we send Zimmerman's address out … " Or he would turn to a reporter to suggest, "Let's do an interview … ” and the reporter, if serious, would have called Florida to check it out.

In new media – which is extraordinary, fast and engaging but totally unfettered -- Spike Lee has been retweeting the insults of racists and calling for justice for Martin for days. But, eventually, he was overwhelmed by anger and, in the name of the law, he has inflicted a grave injustice on two innocent people. It is part of his personality: his movies are characterized by gruff populism; whenever he attended his son's football games at Pier 23 in New York, he always ended up insulting the referee –and sometimes the children, themselves, if they failed to score a touchdown. This time he has caused major trouble, even violating Twitter’s privacy rules, which prohibit the diffusion of personal data, including addresses, without permission of the people concerned. He apologized, but it won't be enough.

It will end -- you can bet on it -- with a judicial confrontation and compensation, either overtly or under-the-table. We are in America, and a lawyer hides behind every apple pie. But Spike Lee's serious mistake has to make you think: common sense, responsibility and balance matter online just as much as they do for print newspapers. The more important, famous and influential an individual is, the more they must keep their eyes, heart and mind open.

Twitter is always played on the fly. There are phony profiles (Fornero, Napolitano and Celentano, for example), false news (like the announcements of Castro and Mandela’s deaths or of Urru's release) and fake reactions. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and tweets as “@jack,” mistook the fake Cormac McCarthy for the real author of "The Road" and "No Country for Old Men." In the old days, Dorsey would have verified the artist’s identity. But, using his own invention, he became reckless and tweeted, “Join me in welcoming @CormacCMcCarthy to Twitter! We have the best authors in the world right here,” without realizing that the alleged McCarthy’s tweets (“Nothing better than waking up at dawn and writing the great American novel, with river and boats,”)**** were a satire. Similar misadventures happen in Italy, due to haste, enthusiasm, naïveté and anger.

Our personal, public and political futures are social networks. The future of journalism lies not in traditional websites, but, rather, in the great social conversation going on all around the planet 24 hours a day, every day. Where every story is everybody's story and everyone can be both a reporter and a commentator. But traditional values like commitment, balance, authoritativeness, equanimity and the verification of sources don't change. On the contrary, they are even more necessary in this new world.

Twitter is a mirror; it only tells us who we really are. Although “@spikelee is followed by 254,526 people, he follows the tweets of just two people, his wife and his son, besides following his own film production company. As if to say, “I don’t listen to anyone, you listen to me.” An arrogance that, in the movie theater as in old media, can produce brilliant results. In the new media universe, it only leads to disaster. Let it be a lesson in humility that must not be forgotten. We’re still waiting for justice for Trayvon Martin, and we’re hoping that new media will serve to invigorate justice rather than encouraging us to resort to the crude justice of an online lynching.

*Editor’s note: Zimmerman’s mother is from Peru.
** Editor’s note: Zimmerman was working toward an Associate in Arts degree in a general studies department at Seminole State College.
*** Editor’s note: Radio Radicale is the official radio station of Italy’s Partito Radicale, or Radical Party.
**** Editor’s note: @CormacCMcCarthy’s tweet, accurately translated, could not be verified.