Stowe Boyd’s looked at Technorati’s recent blogging-related bunfight, and has seen the dead canary in the mine in a post that’s well worth reading. I’ve been following the whole affair closely, since it’s the first clear-cut confirmation of a personal prediction of mine – Internet 2.0 has a political character, and it is fundamentally conservative.
To recap the whole affair: while not at work, Technorati community manager Niall Kennedy posted an edited WWII propaganda poster in his blog that incorporated several corporate logos. An unknown individual from one of these companies found this offensive and complained. Niall was asked to remove the post by his company and did so, but replaced it with a slightly grumpy post about censorship. Since Niall’s blog is widely read, the affair snowballed. As the accusations of censorship spread, Niall rethought his position. Both he and his employer, David Sifry, would go on to eloquently defend Technorati’s request for Niall to remove the post and Niall’s decision to do so. As Niall put it,
“The past day has been a huge wake-up call. I see now that the voice of a company is not limited to top level executives, vice-presidents, and public relations officers. It is a huge responsibility on the individual and a bit difficult to fully comprehend until you have seen the effects of an economy of conversations.”
While many on the ‘Net would go on to congratulate Niall and Technorati’s mature handling of the situation – as opposed to, say, Google’s outright sacking of Mark Jen – Stowe Boyd isn’t having any of it. Stowe writes that Niall “apparently came to the conclusion that in today’s social media world, you can’t be an employee and at the same time make personal statements that are likely to be confused as the corporate position. This is a perception that I believe is profoundly flawed.” He then continues by attributing the whole situation to a “growing climate of corporate conformity,” a “sort of social McCarthyism,” and the the plain old fear of getting sacked.
Boyd’s right about Niall’s conclusion – it’s hard to read that post in any other way. I’m sure all of the factors Boyd mentions also played a role, although I’d dislike the negative spin he places on them (’social McCarthyism’ indeed). However, the underlying enabler and promoter of Niall’s willing self-censorship is the structural change caused by Internet 2.0 itself – the creation of the conversation of all with all. Thanks to our abilities to both easily publish and retrieve information, everybody’s writing for everyone now. (Hi, Mom!) As Scoble put it in his advice to other bloggers, “I imagine how that post will look on the front of the New York Times.” I imagine how my post will look before my boss, my CEO, and my HR department. (Hi, guys!) This isn’t news – the public nature of blogging has been discussed enough that it shouldn’t be unexpectedly public to anyone. Yet very few people are discussing the effect of this on the individuals who do the blogging, and how marvellously self-regulating the whole system is. We may be again returning to a state where the behaviour and beliefs of individuals are moderated by the community as a whole – created, if I’m reading Silicon Valley correctly, by a group of people with a collective tendency to individualism and left-leaning libertarianism. God has a wry sense of humor.
Let’s take a look at the actions of both Niall and Dave Sifry. Once the controversy developed both behaved perfectly rationally, choosing the path of least resistance and greatest common sense. Sifry acted as he did out of concern for the company he’s painstakingly built; Kennedy acted as he did to preserve his reputation and good relationship with his employer. Since both chose the path of least resistance and greatest common sense, the outcome isn’t an abberation – this is a ‘dog bites man’ story, not the other way around. Yet the lessons Niall learned and eloquently communicated to all were undeniably conservative.
As the popularity of blogging, podcasting, video blogging, blog search, and so on grows, many more people will learn the same conservative lesson that Niall did. Some predictions for the future:
1) Blogging will provide an increasingly clear rewards for individual bloggers. Employers looking to hire will increasingly favor those with well-established blogs – all the better to learn about the proclivities and abilities of their candidates. Because of this, more and more people will publicly blog, using full names and accurate biographical information. Most individuals will happily surrender their privacy for a greater perceived benefit.
2) Since blogging will provide an increasingly clear benefit to the individual, the number of bloggers will mushroom. High school guidance counselors and college-based employment centers will begin giving blogging lessons. Career-minded young people will begin cultivating their blogs with the same diligence they currently give to the accumulation of community service and extracurricular activities.
3) Advice along the lines of Scoble’s will become commonplace. From USA Today to evening newscasts, individuals will be told about what is acceptable to blog and what is not acceptale to blog. The consequences of blogging inappropriately will become common wisdom.
4) Affairs like Niall’s or Mark Jen’s will become commonplace, and therefore boring. Because ‘proper blogging etiquette’ will have appeared from everywhere from USA Today to Oprah, the public’s sympathy will lie less and less with the individual blogger, who ‘should have known better.’
5) A new generation of individuals, starting with the high school students of today, will automatically associate successful employment with blogging, and successful blogging with considered self-censorship and image management. Outwardly professed values will become internalized. Truly controversial stances and opinions will be suppressed for fear of real or imagined economic consequences.
6) The tipping point will be reached when radical groups and individuals stop embracing the Internet as a venue for organizing and start shutting themselves off from it – either hiding in access-controlled enclaves or abandoning online life and technology altogether.
No doubt I’m exaggerating; perhaps I’m missing something fundamental. If Internet 2.0 turns out to be a conservative force, it won’t be because of the intentions of its creators. Yet who can fully predict the consequences of their actions and the uses of their creations? If I leaned left or libertarian, I’d be worried.
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There is the question of audience, certainly. It’s one of the things that I personally like about LiveJournal. Your audience is who you chose, not who wanders by. You think a little more about your audience when posting to LJ if you use friends only options and group options. If this has been posted up for only his friends, then we’d never have even heard about it.