Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Here’s why the video portal between NYC and Dublin shut down | TechCrunch Minute”.
The link between NYC and Dublin has been severed. If you were planning to check out the portal, a 24-hour art installation connecting live streams of New York City and Dublin, then you might have to wait after the Lithuanian artist and investor benedicta Gillies unveiled the portal on Wednesday. Most people had some nice wholesome fun with it. People played rock paper scissors across continents, they made signs, they danced and they just kind of delighted in the joy of a collective experience, but of course, people had to ruin it so for now the portal is closed. It was supposed to be on view for 6 months, creating quote an unprecedented real-time, visual Bridge. It didn’t last for 6 days. In one case, an only fans Creator flashed the portal which isn’t technically illegal. But let’s all remember that you shouldn’t expose yourself to people before getting their explicit consent now that Creator is getting death threats which isn’t a great outcome either. In other cases, people in Dublin held up swastikas in images from 9/11 of the Twin Towers on fire, because apparently Edge Lords do exist outside forchan.
Even though the portal is more so an IRL experience, it reflects the same phenomena we see on the internet all the time we want to. Let people interact with this technology organically, but when there’s no social contract around how to act, everything goes haywire and people act terribly toward each other. The portal was supposed to be self-monitored, meaning that people would have to hold each other accountable, but if you’ve ever been on social media, you know that doesn’t work the flat IR or Nomad partnership. One of the organizations behind the installation said that these few instances of bad behavior have been blown out of proportion on social media, and maybe that’s true.
But now the team behind the portal is working on figuring out how to keep the installation going with less risk. So often technology can make us feel isolated from one another. Yet this was finally a moment when we could remember how remarkable it is that we can connects with people from all over the world in the blink of an eye, but that connection is put in Jeopardy when we can’t nice.
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