Ethics of Friending and Gossip

This is interesting. An old article on the ethics of Facebook de-friending in Slate magazine is now on the most emailed list. Here is the author's advice on de-friending in 2007:

Is it OK to de-friend someone?

Say you've been too generous with your friending policy, and a gaggle of strangers is now hogging your News Feed. You too can launch a Great Facebook Purge. The beauty of this is that no headline or notification pops up in your ex-friend's inbox announcing, "You've suffered a humiliating rejection at the hands of _________." It's all very stealthy, thus making it the perfect way to deal with promiscuous frienders.

But what if your so-called friend scans through their friend list and notices that you've gone missing? First off, anyone who is policing their Facebook account this rigorously is morbidly obsessed and thus best kept at arm's length. If she confronts you about it, the best strategy is to plead ignorance: Perhaps the site's massive growth has led to some unexpected technical difficulties? Re-friend, then wait at least six months before trying another de-friending.

When we started this blog, people thought an Internet ethics was far fetched, but the idea seems to be catching on--even with those who are not completely aware of it. You may have seen the expose, tell-all story in the New York Times last weekend from the woman who gossiped her way to stardom but now feels a bit dirty about it. This is a funny excerpt from the article (funny in a sad way):

As Henry and I fought, I kept coming back to the idea that I had a right to say whatever I wanted. I don’t think I understood then that I could be right about being free to express myself but wrong about my right to make that self-expression public in a permanent way. I described my feelings in the language of empowerment: I was being creative, and Henry wanted to shut me up. His point of view was just as extreme: I wasn’t generously sharing my thoughts; I was compulsively seeking gratification from strangers at the expense of the feelings of someone I actually knew and loved. I told him that writing, especially writing about myself and my surroundings, was a fundamental part of my personality, and that if he wanted to remain in my life, he would need to reconcile himself to being part of the world I described.

After a standoff, he conceded that I should be allowed to put the post back up. As he sulked in the other room, I retyped what I’d written, feeling vindicated but slightly queasy for reasons I didn’t quite understand yet.

That "queasy" feeling is your moral compass trying to tell you something: Stop what you are doing.

Total freedom to act with pure impunity is not a good thing. It is something moral philosophers have talked about throughout history. Sometimes restraint is the kindest thing you can do.

The ironic thing is that this meta-narrative of how the author felt bad about doing something only worked to promote her story and (probably) compound the damage to those hurt. I gave a talk at Net Impact in San Francisco on Friday about Internet ethics. I asked who had read this New York Times article. Everyone had read it but no one could finish it because they were so repulsed by the actions of the author.

If you did make it to the end of the article, you would have seen that the author came around:

I understand that by writing here about how I revealed my intimate life online, I’ve now revealed even more about what happened during the period when I was most exposed. Well, I’m an oversharer — it’s not like I’m entirely reformed. But lately, online, I’ve found myself doing something unexpected: keeping the personal details of my current life to myself. This doesn’t make me feel stifled so much as it makes me feel protected, as if my thoughts might actually be worth honing rather than spewing. But I still have Emily Magazine as a place to spew when I need to. It will never again be the friendly place that it was in 2004 — there are plenty of negative comments now, and I don’t delete them. I still think about closing the door to my online life and locking them out, but then I think of everything else I’d be locking out, and I leave it open.

Charity begins at home

P.T. Barnum said "There's a sucker born every minute." Just don't go looking for them on the web.

Consider the case of Holden Karnofsky. A well paid, young financial hotshot, Mr. Karnofosky was hunting for a charity worthy of his donation. Put off by a lack of reliable, transparent information (and sensing a market need) he enlisted his friend Elie Hassenfeld to form GiveWell. Borrowing a page from Moodys, their new non-profit began researching, analyzing and ranking charitable organizations according to their effectiveness.

Things went well. They made some noise. Profiled by The New York Times, NPR and by noted philosopher Peter Singer.

Last month, however, Karnofsky was swiftly relieved of his duties as Executive Director of GiveWell by its Board of Directors after a stunning lapse in judgement. Posing as someone looking for a reputable place to donate, and posting under the pseudonym Geremiah, Karnofsky queried users of the blog Ask MetaFilter for guidance on an organization that could reliably vet charities.

All the websites I've seen just have huge lists of charities with some basic financial data/ratings. I'd ideally like to hear from someone who has put some time into examining/comparing charities and can recommend someone who's good. Any ideas?

After a commenters suggested Charity Navigator, a GiveWell competitor, Karnofsky made his move. Assuming a slightly (*ahem*) transparent screen name, HoldenO, he began posting answers to his own question, guiding the "donor" to GiveWell's website. He was busted after gettting the ire up of user Miko, who smelled a rat when HoldenO and Geremiah both seemed to gang up on him. Miko writes:

Is This Transparency? OP with very slim, one-year posting history asks a question about finding a good charity in AskMe, just prior to year-end tax-decision time. Newly registered responder posts a newly formed charity-aggregator/evaluator organization, without mentioning that he is, apparently, one of the two founders. Self-promotional setup leading to self-link? Or am I being too cynical?

No, Miko, it seems you got it exactly right. Mr. Hassenfeld admitted to indulging in similar self-aggrandizing online behavior a week later. And so Messrs. Karnofsky learned the same lesson as John Mackey, namely that if you try to fool the online community, you are trying to fool an extremely savvy demographic.

Targeting the blogosphere

An interesting conversation is unfolding on The New York Times website on the subject of a story in today's paper titled "Target Tells a Blogger to Go Away," by Michael Barbaro.

In short, a blogger wrote an e-mail to Target, the big-box retailer, taking it to task for using an image of questionable taste on a billboard in Times Square. Target blithely dismissed the blogger's concerns on the grounds that they "do not participate with nontraditional media outlets." According to Barbaro, "Target’s policy is to focus limited resources on the big media outlets, like television stations and newspapers, which reach large numbers of shoppers."

The Times asked its readers to weigh in on a question first posed by myself and Devin Stewart in October: Do you think bloggers should expect to be treated the same as traditional media outlets?

Some of the responses:

To me, most blogs are a disappointment. They are quickly taken over by hardened "pros" and hardened "cons" whereas they seem to be a vehicle to explore different ideas. -- Deweyjon

No, althought the news media may be somewhat biased in its reporting; most bloggers are far too opinionated to relate objectively without reflecting their opinions. Of course, ideally, all reporting should be objective and non-biased. — Bill M

you think that I should be allowed to perform back-of-the-eye surgery just because I happen to have an opinion on its benefits and drawbacks? — ErikK

And my personal favorite:

Real journalists tend to have some education as journalists and some exposure to journalistic ethics. They maybe even had to pass a class or two in college dealing with the legal and ethical issues in their profession.There is not yet anything resembling a professional code of ethics for bloggers. And anyone with an Internet connection who can type can call himself or herself a blogger. It's the Wild West out there.In view of that, I don't think bloggers should expect to be treated like real journalists. — Patricia

Wiki Rival: Transparency

Google is in the process of developing a rival to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows users to post entries with handles, effectively giving them a degree of anonymity when they post. On the upside, that means someone with intimate knowledge of a subject might be able to contribute even if that person has sensitivities about doing so in public. But Wikipedia also allows anonymous editors to change or delete entries.

It seems that the Google rival service would do away with both of these aspects. First, the service would promote bylined entries:

Google asserts that the Web's development so far has neglected the importance of the bylined author.

"We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content," wrote Udi Manber, vice president of engineering, on the official Google blog.

Second, the entries would not be edited by other users but would rather accumulate. The most credible entries would emerge from Google’s search technology:

Entries can't be edited or revised by other people, in contrast to Wikipedia. However, other readers will be able to rank and review others' entries, which will then be interpreted by Google's search engine when displaying results.

According to the New York Times article "Google Develops Wikipedia Rival," Google’s project is in the beta phase. Google has a long way to catch up to Wikipedia in this area. Can they do it?

China's "Mental Firewall"

Today’s Wall Street Journal reported on bloggers in China and touched on two important issues discussed previously on the Ethical Blogger: trust and credibility on the Internet in China and the blogger Zola’s influential corruption coverage. The main emphasis of today’s WSJ article, however, was on the role of self-censorship, rather than government controls, as a hurdle to free speech on the Internet:

China’s 162 million Internet users are a largely young and wealthy set who typically aren’t engaged in politics. Most don’t seem intent on accessing the sort of content that would upset the authorities. They are busy amassing virtual weapons in online games and posting photos to blogs.

But when content does get political, the government doesn’t have to do all the censoring itself…

China’s Confucian values teach respect for authority and the subordination of the individual to the family and state. In China’s rigid education system, young people rarely are encouraged to express their opinions. And people have learned to keep quiet as political orthodoxies changed with the wind over the decades, with leaders coming into power, then falling out of favor as new regimes installed themselves. Finding yourself on the wrong side could lead to punishment, including exile and jail.

The Chinese government has made it very clear to the public that the tradition of harsh punishment for dissidence extends into cyberspace. In addition to placing rigid barriers to market entry on Internet companies, making it difficult for independent Internet service and content providers to compete with State controlled entities, the Chinese government has laid out rigid regulations for companies and individual Internet users to follow. Companies that skirt the rules can be subject to fines of up to RMB 50,000, closure of sites, and revocation of business licenses, while in extreme cases, individual cyberdissidents have been sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty. This alone has deterred a number of Internet users from pushing their limits.

In some instances the line between self-censorship and government censorship is blurred. A May 2006 New York Times article entitled “As Chinese Students Go Online, Little Sister Is Watching” spotlights Hu Yingying, a student at Shanghai Normal University who monitors the university’s discussion boards and steers conversation away from politics or other sensitive topics:

Part traffic cop, part informer, part discussion moderator — and all without the knowledge of her fellow students — Ms. Hu is a small part of a huge national effort to sanitize the Internet. For years China has had its Internet police, reportedly as many as 50,000 state agents who troll online, blocking Web sites, erasing commentary and arresting people for what is deemed anti-Communist Party or antisocial speech.

But Ms. Hu, one of 500 students at her university's newly bolstered, student-run Internet monitoring group, is a cog in a different kind of force, an ostensibly all-volunteer one that the Chinese government is mobilizing to help it manage the monumental task of censoring the Web.

These tactics haven’t completely eliminated sensitive political discussion. Cyberdissidents in China use email spamming techniques to dispense information. Li Hongkuan, who goes by the alias Richard Long, began sending a newsletter called VIP Reference News out to roughly 250,000 people in via email. His newsletter is actually a banned website, but Li is able to provide his otherwise unavailable information to the masses because email recipients can claim that it was unsolicited and avoid punishment (although some suppliers of email addresses were jailed). Other modern communications tools like text messaging have been crucial to organizing protests, and since cell phone use is more widespread than the Internet in China’s rural areas, this may for now be a better tool for disseminating information and mobilizing the masses.

So perhaps blogs don’t provide complete insight into the spectrum of controversial activities going on in authoritarian regimes, as dissidents may be finding it more beneficial to spread their influence through multiple communications outlets.

More on Anonymity

We are fortunate to have sparked quite a lively debate on this blog. We got a lot of love from Google. Last week our magazine Policy Innovations was accepted by Google as a news source and Google's Blogger named The Ethical Blogger a "blog of note," triggering a flood of traffic and comments.

One of the biggest areas of debate so far has been about the utility of anonymous postings. I originally called for general transparency in the blogosphere here and mused on the counter intuitive credibility an anonymous blogger can have in oppressive environments, such as in China. We also had a touching comment from a teacher in the New York school system who was sanctioned for writing an op-ed, using a professional email address. Here is an excerpt:

I hate the feeling that in this country, a supposedly free country, that people must hide behind anonymous names.

I, too, hate the namecalling and animosity I read in debate. We can disagree without bashing the person; we can converse without rude language.

This is a topic I care about personally and professionally. How can students learn to debate and converse when all around them they see venomous attacks and language not worthy of intelligent thought?

This is a complicated case, as they all are, because this teacher tried to do the right thing but was caught in school system politics. I am not sure if this advice is applicable, but Tim O'Reilly has discussed anonymity quite a bit on his blog thread on developing a Blogger's Code of Conduct.

One of his codes of conduct is to connect privately before we respond publicly: "When we encounter conflicts and misrepresentation in the blogosphere, we make every effort to talk privately and directly to the person(s) involved--or find an intermediary who can do so--before we publish any posts or comments about the issue."

From the lessons he learned so far, he notes on anonymity:

Another place where we clearly erred in the first draft is in the suggestion that anonymity should be forbidden, as there are most certainly contexts where anonymity is incredibly valuable. (Some that come to mind include whistleblowing, political dissent, or even general discussion where someone might not want to confuse their personal opinions of those of an organization to which they belong. As one commenter remarked, it might even be useful for a shy person to whom anonymity gives a bit of courage.)

Like the New York Times Public Editor (read Matthew Hennessey's post on this topic here), O'Reilly concludes that civility is therefore of utmost importance:

But I believe that civility is catching, and so is uncivility. If it's tolerated, it gets worse. There is no one blogging community, just like there is no one community in a big city. But as Sara Winge, our VP of Corporate Communications pointed out, it's not an accident that "Civil" is also the first two syllables of "civilization." What's more, when an exchange of ideas turns into an exchange of insults, everyone loses.

Without civility, a few bad apples ruin the Internet for everyone.

I Built My Blog of Glass

The article about how the New York Times is striving to maintain an editorial policy of "civil discourse" in the comments on its blogs raises some interesting issues (Matthew Hennessey touched on a few here). It led me to think that in some ways blogs blur the lines between public and private space. For example, if you have an open house party and a guest leaves footprints on your walls you're well within your rights to give him the boot. But discouraging similar unruliness by deleting or editing comments on a blog can quickly lead to accusations of censorship.

This issue is compounded by the fact that blogs are hosted and owned in a number of different ways, from free public services like Blogger to proprietary and commercial institutions of journalism like the NYT. That's why bloggers and hosts develop content policies and terms of service to set the rules of use, indemnify themselves, reserve rights, etc. Otherwise all the huffing and puffing might blow their blog down.

It seems natural then, given the public/private nature of blogs, that many would adopt a "house rules" approach to filtering content, and transparency comes from making that policy explicit. Do the blogs of journalists, press, and media carry unique or additional responsibilities for disclosure or tolerance? Many letters to the editor never see the light of day, but there's no public outcry over that.

Photo of Philip Johnson's Glass House by Mel K (CC).

Public Editor Seeks Civility (and finds it lacking at nytimes.com)

Clark Hoyt is the Public Editor of the New York Times (a position created in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal). His column this weekend, "Civil Discourse, Meet the Internet," began with the following disclaimer:

WARNING: This column contains rude and objectionable language not normally found in the pages of this newspaper but seen surprisingly often on its Web site.

As the title and warning suggest, Hoyt's column details the messy side of web interactivity. Most of the time, this is confined to boorishness. But the convention of anonymous posting in the blogosphere is particularly conducive to both unsupported claims and personal attacks. The traditional approach to journalism is being challenged, and informed by, so-called citizen journalism.

From Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, on down, executives and editors of The Times use similar language to describe their goal: they want the newspaper's Web site to nurture a healthy, "civil discourse" on the topics of the day.

As Hoyt notes, however, "the real Internet world often falls far short." He cites the challenges that vex Kate Phillips, editor of The Caucus, nytimes.com's political blog:

...Phillips said she struggles sometimes with the "intolerance" and "vitriol" she sees in some comments—so much so that on rare occasions "I almost wish we could go back to the days when we never heard their voices."

The most challenging ethical problems often require forbearance in the face of unruly, unexpected or undignified behavior. Yet, ethics is a normative pursuit, one whose ultimate purpose is to distinguish between the acceptable and unacceptable. Some have argued for an internet conversation ungoverned by standards. While you can't yell "Fire!" in a theater, you're still pretty free to write whatever you like online.

Is this what we want from the internet? Is this all we want from it?