Prompt's TechBlog
Censoring social media
05 February 2008
Posted by Zach Hofer-Shall
This morning I learned that the Prompt TechBlog is starting to pick up in popularity a bit, which I am initially very excited about. Unfortunately, the way I discovered this growing popularity is through an increase in our amount of spam comments. We will eventually need to institute a captcha, or a more rigorous login system, but I think that it's a tricky task to encourage a community response while at the same time making it difficult for readers to chime in.
This brings me to a moment this morning when I deleted a questionably spammy comment. It wasn't on topic and the author's name linked to an unrelated .biz site. This is a no-brainer delete, right? Well what is strange is that I feel slightly guilty about it.
As idealistic as this might sound, I don't think social media should be censored. Obviously spam is a different case, but the point of "Web 2.0" is interactivity and involvement online. Altering a user's ability to interact takes the "social" out of social media. Or, maybe I'm just sensitive to this concept due to the numerous recent examples of Web 2.0 censoring.
Social bookmarking site Digg has been under constant scrutiny this past month, as users have learned of secret editors who can bury stories that go against the company's interests.
Expedia, the popular discount travel site is in the midst of a scandal which suggests that it has been censoring negative reviews of hotels that are the site's paid sponsors. Apparently, negative trip reviews on Expedia drastically decreases a hotel's popularity, a fact that was costing Expedia until negative reviews were removed.
Then there's the shadiness behind Amazon's "Top Reviewers," who are, in fact, paid by independent companies for their positive words on products.
Transparency is the number one rule in good blogging; shouldn't this extend to the rest of social media? As I said earlier, it's idealistic to assume the social web could go uncensored, but it's just sad to see the depths to which it is already falling.
I guess we can only hope that Web 3.0 technology will include some fancy integrated utopian functionality, or at least some quixotically themed widgets.
And lastly, to our censored commenter: "Ryan"- if you truly are a real Prompt Blog reader and you wanted to use our comment section to spark a conversation about some billionaire in NY and his illicit affairs, please email me. I'll gladly republish your comment and open a dialogue on this completely irrelevant topic.
This brings me to a moment this morning when I deleted a questionably spammy comment. It wasn't on topic and the author's name linked to an unrelated .biz site. This is a no-brainer delete, right? Well what is strange is that I feel slightly guilty about it.
As idealistic as this might sound, I don't think social media should be censored. Obviously spam is a different case, but the point of "Web 2.0" is interactivity and involvement online. Altering a user's ability to interact takes the "social" out of social media. Or, maybe I'm just sensitive to this concept due to the numerous recent examples of Web 2.0 censoring.
Social bookmarking site Digg has been under constant scrutiny this past month, as users have learned of secret editors who can bury stories that go against the company's interests.
Expedia, the popular discount travel site is in the midst of a scandal which suggests that it has been censoring negative reviews of hotels that are the site's paid sponsors. Apparently, negative trip reviews on Expedia drastically decreases a hotel's popularity, a fact that was costing Expedia until negative reviews were removed.
Then there's the shadiness behind Amazon's "Top Reviewers," who are, in fact, paid by independent companies for their positive words on products.
Transparency is the number one rule in good blogging; shouldn't this extend to the rest of social media? As I said earlier, it's idealistic to assume the social web could go uncensored, but it's just sad to see the depths to which it is already falling.
I guess we can only hope that Web 3.0 technology will include some fancy integrated utopian functionality, or at least some quixotically themed widgets.
And lastly, to our censored commenter: "Ryan"- if you truly are a real Prompt Blog reader and you wanted to use our comment section to spark a conversation about some billionaire in NY and his illicit affairs, please email me. I'll gladly republish your comment and open a dialogue on this completely irrelevant topic.
# posted by Zach Hofer-Shall at 10:24 PM 
Comments:
One problem is that there isn't yet an inclusive captcha that can be used by everyone. Users of assistive devices for web browsing or those with vision impairments often have problems deciphering captchas. Obviously, nobody wants to exclude people from the conversation based on a disability, but this is exactly what many websites end up doing.
Moderating comments might be the way forward. Clearly there's an element of trust involved - moderation shouldn't used to suppress criticism. But without moderation, the whole conversation would be consumed by advertising.
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