Not so Much...
Daver Winer, on the latest revelations from the Kathy Sierra mess:
Next time -- think before you trash someone, no matter how much you dislike them, especially because you dislike them. It takes courage to stand up to a mob, but that is the best of what it means to be an American.
Small problem: The morons who set up meankids.com knew where that was going to go. Or worse, if they didn't know, they've been living in a cultural deprivation cave for their entire lives. If you're old enough to remember the early "social media" - BBS systems, USENET, and forums - then you darn well knew what was going to come out of a site that encouraged anonymous stuff.
Doesn't mean the people who set it up intended to see death threats tossed around, no. However - if they thought anything valuable was going to come out of such a venture after watching online behavior over the last two decades, then there's something deeply, deeply disconnected about them.
Technorati Tags: stupidity
Comments
MeanKids.Org's Rep is Overblown
[Rogers Cadenhead] March 29, 2007 11:56:30.799
I went back and read a bunch of Mean Kids today. Most of it was harmless and it began with playful intent rather than malice. Kathy Sierra even suggested herself as a target when it was just getting underway.
You can fault the authors for not recognizing where it might lead or shutting it down sooner, but it's not that much different than running a blog with a loose moderation policy and seeing racists and other asshats set up shop there. You can't always deal with that as quickly as you should, and sometimes it's easy to tell yourself that free expression is important enough to let offensive speech stand.
Responsibility...
[ James Robertson] March 29, 2007 13:59:21.304
Comment by James Robertson
Unless we hold people responsible for the results of their actions, we don't make progress. Contrary to the current "blame no one" theory of operation, I'm trying to be judgmental.
Anon Not The Main Issue
[W^L+] March 29, 2007 14:13:01.333
I don't see the anonymity as the main issue. The problem is in setting up that type of site without strict monitoring and moderation. Most bloggers quickly find that automated spambots will pollute their comments unless they put in safeguards. Similarly, crackpots and cranks will pollute any public forum if they are allowed to do so. This is even more so when the members of that forum are not the same people that the person sees and talks to daily. I have no knowledge of meankids.org outside of what I've read about this incident. It does seem to me that what you say is right: if they could not predict this sort of thing in that context, they just were not thinking clearly. The issue, IMO is not that some anon posters crossed the line, but that there was no moderation to prevent it from being publicly posted and that such a moderator did not contact law enforcement himself/herself. In all honesty, there are things going on in most companies and government agencies that need to be exposed, but will not be, simply because of the risk of being tracked down and punished. If nothing else, this calls for MORE anonymity, rather than less, coupled with responsible gatekeeping.