Should the social web have a Bill of Rights? At first thought, no. Then I start to think about the heartbreaking suicide of a Rutgers University student last week, and I am forced to re-evaluate my answer. One would only hope that the way we conduct ourselves offline should be no different than the way we conduct ourselves online, right? Well, the painful truth is some people’s conduct offline is completely different than their conduct online; this conduct often can and has lead to tragedy.
Before I delve any further into the Rutgers University tragedy, I want to mention that the idea of a Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web is well-thought and well-versed, but it in all reality, it would be impossible to regulate and even more difficult to enforce, but that’s not to say that it isn’t needed in some capacity.
Touching on the first suggested fundamental right—Ownership—I can’t help but think about how saturated the web has become with copy and paste content. News and stories spread like wildfire and are passed along like viruses via modern day journalists aka bloggers; the originating source is rarely cited. Why would they source? Most bloggers are trying to prove that they are a credible source, wanting to direct traffic to their blog first. In the real world, plagiarism is taken seriously, but the World Wide Web is a different world. Tools to identify plagiarism are certainly not as popular as Twitter, therefore, making it impossible to enforce the idea of ownership of content.
The second and third fundamental rights of Control and Freedom suggested in the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web lead me back to Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University who committed suicide after a sexual encounter with his partner was unknowingly webcasted by his roommate.
On the evening of September 19, Dharun Ravi allegedly sent a message via Twitter about Tyler Clementi.
"Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."
"Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again," Ravi is believed to have tweeted.
The next day, Clementi was dead.
A mobile status update September 22 on a Facebook page purportedly belonging to Clementi said: "jumping off the gw bridge sorry."
Although Clementi's roommate, Ravi, and fellow Rutgers student, Molly Wei, have been charged with invasion of privacy, prosecutors are still weighing whether to charge Ravi and Wei with a hate crime. Say what? I understand the need to determine the facts and then determine what the applicable law is, but if there was some type of legislation in place regarding the social web and malicious acts using this medium—such as filming someone having sex with their significant other and dishing it out like candy on Halloween night—the only weighing would be at the jail where Ravi and Wei would be taken into custody. Both height and weight would be recorded, and that record would be permanent; the same way every single word posted on the web is. Unfortunately, there is no law to protect us from embarrassment and humiliation, which I can only assume is what led Clementi to commit suicide; which is the gray cloud that is ominously hovering over this case.
The social web is undoubtedly being used to exploit and hurt people, whether it's gossip or bullying, but there is a fine line between gossip and bullying, and pure torment. In Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody, the story of the lost Sidekick and its accompanying retrieval proposed how dramatically connected humans were becoming. "The ways in which the information we give off about ourselves, in photos and e-mails and MySpace pages and all the rest of it, has dramatically increased our social visibility and made it easier for us to find each other but also to be scrutinized in public." Wait, who still has a MySpace page? More importantly, who had a Sidekick?! *Raises my hand in utter excitement!* The social web can be a wonderful and powerful tool, but the latter can also lead to self-destruction, and in many cases has. For this, I do think there should be a governing set or rules intact, or some type of policy within institutions (e.g., schools and enterprises) that encourage the use of social media and where the usage of social media is widespread, such as Rutgers University. I was unable to find Rutgers University’s social media policy on their university site, however, I did find a Let’s Be Social page and information regarding an upcoming event where social media will be the topic of discussion: Social media and government policy-making: Has the great promise been realized? It’s safe to assume that a social media policy is being constructed as I type this blog post, at least I hope so.
As I mentioned, I do think Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington where clever for suggesting that a Bill of Rights was needed for the social web, I just think it would be extremely difficult to regulate and enforce; and in most cases unnecessary, but laws are usually created for the exception, not the rule. And in this case, the suicide of Clementi as a result of his exploitation through the web is the exception.
***
One thing that I found fascinating given the events that unfolded last week with the string of suicides by gay teens was an idea in Shirky's Here Comes Everybody; Shirky insinuated that increasing human interaction via social networking demonstrated "the ease and speed with which a group can be mobilized for the right kind of cause." The movement that has sprung from the death of Clementi, among other gay-teen suicide victims, is a testament to this idea. These untimely deaths have mobilized organizations across the country to shed light on the plight of homosexual teenagers. Gay rights activist Dan Savage has launched a YouTube channel called "It Gets Better" where he solicits videos from fans who want to provide support and encouragement to gay teens who face adversity, discrimination and bullying in high school. The movement has already caught the attention and enlisted celebrities such as Perez Hilton, Ciara, Tim Gunn, and Jason De Rulo, among others to create videos offering their support and encouragement.
Ironically, the social web will save and destroy lives. Bill of Rights, or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment