"...the extreme license given individuals to vent, dissemble, excoriate and indulge their hates verbally, winds up destroying the expressive freedom that other people, less bold and less opinionated, need. Venturing an opinion, even a sound one, just isn't worth the risk. The overall result is a less expansive, less robust sphere of expression -- and sound, worthwhile thoughts aren't shared."

Media: We need online rules

Good thought food for all of us!

Most of the members of this forum have been complaining about their loss of freedoms. Now, it's being suggested we need more rules in this world.

Which is it?

Freedom of the press shall be unabriged, you might not like what is written, but its the right of anyone, be it liberal, conservative, socialist, nazi, communist, babtist, athiest, wiccen etc.

The message I took away from this article is that, while we may vehemently disagree, we should all strive to be respectful to one another. Some here are better at that than others.

I absolutely and completely oppose this.

The whole premise of the article is that we need the established media giants to help us use the Internet to communicate better.

WTF !?!

Let's go through this hit job:

"In the pre-Internet world of TV and newspapers, public comment wasn't a problem.

[...]

Papers had their letters pages, but allowed only enough space for a few dozen a week, and they were generally written with care and were easy to prune for taste and diction.

Things were nicely under control."

Now this was necessary because of the limits on the media being used. We can only have so many pages in a news paper, broadcasts consume spectrum, etc...

The need to balance these "commons" for the greater good was clear. Regulation then made, and still does make good sense. Can't have everybody talking, or the media becomes too much noise and not enough signal.

Now, there is an undercurrent here worth noting, and that is with that regulation comes some authority and control that actually plays into the traditional media companies hands.

The filtering of public commentary sharply limited the fact checking and challenging of stories to a privileged few, best case we see ordinary Joe American having a say.

With that comes a lot of trust, and with that trust power.

Now, let's move on.

"But on the Internet, public comment isn't kitchen table talk, it's saloon brawl. Postings are sharp and rough-and-tumble. Harsh and derisive exchanges are common. So are personal attacks. Chat rooms and message boards routinely allow people to post comments anonymously. Only when postings are so egregious, so outrageous, racist or vile that other participants cough up hairballs do managers strike the comments and banish the authors.

That's the cyber pond that traditional news organizations are diving into.

They understand that their own futures hinge on re-establishing online the central role in civic life that they've played offline.

So they are eager to host forums where people in the communities they serve go first to offer comment.

What about taste, civility?"

There is the meat of it right there. It's is completely true that things get ugly when people can comment. It's not so much anonymous posting as it is the moderation rules in force that handle this, BTW. I'm gonna hit that in another thread, but let's just say it's not all about anonymous posting and leave it there.

Traditional news wants to control the discussion, be the focus, etc...

They had this by default, pre-Internet because that was the only option.

Post-Internet, people will gather where they will and say what they will. Both good and bad go with that, of course.

Wanting to be a part of the discussion on the Internet today means one and only one thing:

adding value worthy of that greater focus.

That's it. If they can add value, they are gonna get the attention and trust that goes with that. If they can't then they won't, and it's all really that simple.

At this point, I'm gonna put forward the idea of managing expectations (and that's keyed to moderation and how the forums are structured more than anything), instead of MAKING RULES.

These guys don't get how regulation works! It's not about rules alone. It's about norms, physics, money and rules (laws).

If you want a better Internet discussion area, then all that really has to be done is to build one, not legislate one.

Moving on:

"And taste and civility, respectfulness? Old-line values of a discredited media elite."

Not true at all. None of these have really changed all that much.

"The new guiding principle is hands-off. At an American Society of Newspaper Editors workshop I attended recently in California, some very good and high-powered online journalists -- not the consensus, admittedly -- suggested that even screening postings would drive commentators to other websites, where they could speak their minds without restraint. And that would be ruinous to newspapers' online strategies."

Now, they have this right. The conversations, if they are to have value, must absolutely be real! Being real means hearing some not so pretty stuff, from time to time, but it also means actually having enough of an exchange to benefit from it, not just be entertained by it.

But, "hands off" is more complex than "do we filter the comments?". Goes back to structure, which I'll tackle outside of this post.

[continued]

You know, I had a short run-in with a gal online once. I never forgot it. She pointed out that she would like to talk more about the thing we were talking about ( it was legal stuff regarding internet broadcasting ), but she wasn't really interested in competing against strong personalities in order to be heard. I, in this case, was the lout to which she was referring.

And she was right. I was being a lout. I have a feeling I missed out on a perspective that would have made me understand something a bit more. That's my loss. I'll deal with it. But thanks for the reminder Magic - duly noted.

Sorry for some length, but this is a very important issue that has been handled wrong a lot of times. It carries implications far beyond what gets said on a forum or message board.

It's really the case for a very regulated Internet, for the greater good and to prevent the tragedy of the commons. In cyberspace, the commons is as big as we want it to be. That's not the issue. The tragedy is all about failure to understand core dynamics of people to a degree necessary to add value.

"But is the marketplace of ideas self-regulating? Is defamation canceled out by testimonials, falsehoods by truth?"

This is not the right question to ask. It's not a zero sum game, nor does it have the right scope to really deliver an answer that has any value.

"In this case, the extreme license given individuals to vent, dissemble, excoriate and indulge their hates verbally, winds up destroying the expressive freedom that other people, less bold and less opinionated, need. Venturing an opinion, even a sound one, just isn't worth the risk. The overall result is a less expansive, less robust sphere of expression -- and sound, worthwhile thoughts aren't shared."

This has merit frankly. I do think the number of online contributors is lower than possible for these and many other reasons. However, dealing with this problem is as much about people having their own issues as much as it is anything else.

Remember, cyberspace is as big as we want it to be. So, there currently are venues where anybody can participate, and they do, period.

The real focus is those venues are not something that is a part of the traditional media story and they see that as a problem because it means their role in culture is significantly diminished.

All true, and it begs the question, "well is that bad?". Something for the thread for sure. Curious to hear what others have to say about that.

I frankly like the checks and balances both bring to the table. The net can fact check anything damn quick. The diversity of commentary allows for people to self-identify quickly and easily too. All good stuff.

Large news organizations can go dig for stories, gain access, publish outside the net, establish reputations, etc... All good too.

I don't know that the case for this all being one happy family makes any sense. We would lose the push and pull that adds value!

"Public conversation -- exchanging ideas about what a community is and ought to be -- is something that has to be learned."

Remember what I wrote about managing expectations! This is the key, and they are absolutely right about this stuff being learned. Us old school Internet users were mentored by other old schoolers and learned a lot of net ethics.

This didn't happen in the same way when the public at large was let in. Oh man! What a mess. But it's way better today, people are learning and growing.

Not as ugly as they would have you believe!

"nfortunately, mainstream media have made a fortune teaching people the wrong ways to talk to each other, offering up Jerry Springer, Crossfire, Bill O'Reilly. People understandably conclude rage is the political vernacular, that this is how public ideas are talked about."

Agreed period.

"With the move online, journalism has the opportunity to morph into a practice based not just on information gathering and narrative skill, but of stewardship, of presiding over a community-wide conversation about what's going on and what matters."

No. This is essentially saying that only journalists are qualified to regulate and moderate online speech. Recent Supreme Court cases are establishing that anybody can participate in an act of Journalism and as such, become a Journalist.

Those people qualified to manage online spaces are those that provide the spaces, period, end of story. It's how that space is structured that determines what kind of space it's gonna be, not some umbrella ethic of any kind.

The fact that they don't understand this, means they are simply not qualified to be regulators. And I'm speaking of the kinds of people that would identify with this opinion piece in general.

[continued]

"Those message boards and chat rooms aren't just market extension opportunities for media owners. They're warm and busy spaces where a new world of expression and communication is incubating."

Absolutely true.

And say it or not, there are dollars surrounding that, generally speaking.

Regulating it, without really understanding the dynamics of it, will kill it, period.

"To say there should be rules, that communicants should be admonished to strive for honesty and civility and respect, is not to justify elitism. It's not even to prescribe the rules. But it's to acknowledge that rules are needed, and to kick off the process of writing them."

No.

Quite simply it comes down to the following:

(send me a check, if you want to)

1. Lead by example.

This is helping people be better people, show tolerance and take the time to work through differences and gain understanding.

2. Structure your space according to your expectations for it.

This requires some understanding of both the social dynamics in play, and of how the Internet works generally.

(on another thread, I'll go in to some of that)

3. Manage those expectations.

This means being a part of that community on a peer basis, forming relationships and cultivating those kinds of discourse YOU think add value, whatever that value may happen to be.

4. Add value.

Online communities are impacted by their structure as much as their participants. The community as a whole is greater than it's contributors. If this is not understood and is seen as some kind of playground where there are tiers of classes, etc... then it's not gonna do what you want it to do; namely, empowe communication.

5. Be Humble

It's not possible to moderate a discussion and also be a part of it. Those contributors, who are not regulators, will be inhibited by those that are.

For some communities, this works with some people being moderators and they generally stay out of the fray. Depends on who you've got and the subject matter more than anything.

However, as the provider of the space, it's gotta be a seperate thing.

This means, for example, tolerating discussions that are critical of the provider of the space to a very high degree. Having the high ground in this means keeping the roles of contributor and provider very clear and differentiated.

With news organizations, that's gonna be a very tough one to deal with. On other forums and other topics, such as cars, for example, commentary critical of the forum can easily be seen as inflammatory and without value and regulated easily enough.

News organizations are going to have their very business attacked in this way and often that's going to be defensible, meaning regulation is very tough.

More later, on structure and moderation, maybe here, maybe elsewhere when I get some time.