Comments on: What Happens When Transparency Goes Wrong?

By: Selling Social Media « Direct Marketing Observations

Selling Social Media « Direct Marketing Observations — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:24:15 +0000

[...] person admitting that he really didn’t know enough about social media to answer the question. Refreshing in his transparency but disheartening as [...]

By: DrGerius

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By: Transparency: How to Develop a Transparent plan to Maximize Value and Build a Brand « Mar’s PR

Thu, 07 May 2009 07:50:14 +0000

[...] What Happens When Transparency Goes Wrong? [...]

By: smorty71

smorty71 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:55:44 +0000

If we really want to look at this objectively, we need to take the issue of Prop 8 out of it. Makes it too easy to let the topic take center stage.

What if someone published a mashup of public information for a less controversial topic?

There will *always* be information in the public domain that *could* endanger someone. Who gets to decide what information is potentially harmful and which isn't?

I'm not naive enough to think that some people aren't capable of doing really terrible things; however, I am not going to support banning or removing certain types of information from the public domain. Puts us on a slippery slope toward all kinds of limits to our rights that could be invoked to protect us from potential harm.

Not to get too political; however, I think we saw how the threat of terrorism was used to do just that over the past 4 years.

By: Rebecca Rose

Rebecca Rose — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 14:33:47 +0000

Wonderful post as usual and I agree with you that we have a responsibility to each other to be transparent but also not to endanger others. Just because something happens online in a somewhat anonymous environment, doesn't negate the fact that there are real people behind those sites and that information. It's like my grandma told me, “If you wouldn't say something to someone's face then best keep your mouth shut!” And if you're endangering someone for simply expressing their opinion (which they are entitled to) then it is YOU who are in the wrong – not them for not sharing your opinion.

PS – I grew up in Red Bay, Alabama and I fully back what you say about the deep south. Living in California now it's hard for people to understand that mentality, but it definitely exists.

By: Morning Edition - Feb 3, 2009 « Sazbean

Morning Edition - Feb 3, 2009 « Sazbean — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:45:06 +0000

[...] What Happens when Transparency Goes Wrong? (Social Media Explorer) [...]

By: AdamGurri

AdamGurri — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:39:40 +0000

Well on that particular question I think that “should” or “should not” don't matter because the “how” of implementation needs to be addressed first.

I happen to think that, whatever the good or bad consequences of it, enforcing that sort of governance on the web is and will remain impossible. The Chinese government has some 20,000 cutting edge technicians attempting to impose their will upon the web in their country, and still anyone who really wants to can get around their filters. They arrest bloggers all the time, but we see lawsuits against copyright piracy all the time here–the fact is that neither blogging in China nor filesharing in the US are going to go away because the tools simply do not exist to impose the kind of regulations those governments would like to–and I doubt they ever will.

By: JasonFalls

JasonFalls — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:32:51 +0000

Fair point. I also think, however, that a some point there will have to be some sort of governance of the Internet to protect things like intellectual property, copyright, etc. The border-less world of the web now makes it difficult to police things that the Digg DVD key issue, but it's certainly not out of question for the United Nations or some other such body to come along and say, “We must have limits.” Most countries would agree to it and International law would then rule.

I don't necessarily want to see that happen, but I think it has to at some point.

By: JasonFalls

JasonFalls — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:28:06 +0000

Thanks Janet. We certainly need policing from time to time. The balance and question comes in when and how much. I wish I had those answers.

Thanks for the comment.

By: AdamGurri

AdamGurri — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:20:16 +0000

The Society of Professional Journalists was possible because the costs associated with print and television as mediums were high enough to keep the number of people who could be called "journalists" to a relatively low number. They could make one another swear to a joint code of ethics because they were a distinct profession. I find the effectiveness of their code to be debatable, but that's a discussion I'll save for another time.

Right now, there are no real cost barriers to doing what journalists used to do. Even if you could form something like a Society of Citizen Journalists (of which there are already many) the number of people who did not join such a thing would outnumber those who did by a ridiculous amount. The influence that such a group could achieve would likely be minimal.

In the end these are moral questions that there are no easy answers to. All we can do is our small part to show disapproval for certain actions, and approval for others.

By: AdamGurri

AdamGurri — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:12:49 +0000

There's certainly no easy answer. A quick thought: it wasn't really lawful when digg users kept posting the digital key for HD-DVDs, but the legal repercussions were minimal as law in all of this is quite fuzzy. While I found the digg users' insistence on publishing the key a bit much considering the relative unimportance of the issue, I think it demonstrates something about putting information out on the web: as of this moment it's very difficult to stop people from putting out what they want to put out, and the legal remedies to this are unlikely to ever make much of a difference.

So forcing exposure may be an option after all, if there is enough support for it.