User-Generated Censorship
Track: Fundamentals
Tags Novice, Fundamentals
Presented by Annalee Newitz (io9). User-generated censorship is what happens when crowds on social media networks flag content as "inappropriate" and get it removed or hidden. This represents a break with traditional top-down censorship. But is user-generated censorship an improvement, or worse than Big Brother? We'll find out by looking at examples from Flickr, YouTube, Craiglist, and more.
Comments
Good information, and some interesting real-world examples. Wasn't always sure what she would want these companies to do. For instance, she seemed critical about how easy it easy to notify flickr of "unsafe" photos. What would she have preferred as a mechanism?
Loved it. Blogged it. Full reaction here:
http://blogs.pathf.com/agileajax/2008/04/crowds-can-be-w.html
There was some useful information about how to better expose a user feedback/censoring system and run it on your site. Still it felt like there was a lot of whining about how certain cites do things today and not enough suggestions about how to cost-effectively improve the situation. Nothing in the talk seemed very insightful to me.
Very useful examples of how real companies deal with terms of service, rules, and censorship.
Right-wing conspiracy concepts... there wasn't a very nuanced understanding of both sides of a very complex issue. after a few minutes I felt like I "got the point"
Good stuff, and relevant to my current project. My company gathers info from hospitals, users, and vendors to put it all together and helps everyone make a better educated decision. A lot of that involves people rating a vendors product. We would want vendors to be able to participate in the blog (minus their sales spin) but the possibility that they could mob our site and abuse the spam button b/c they don't like a users comment about their product is scary/unfair/stifling.