Facebook and the obscene

First off, I'm writing this via blackberry... so I apologize for the lack of links, etc. to the original story.

The good folks at Facebook are facing a bit of a backlash after closing the account of at least one Canadian mother whose snaps of her nursing her child were deemed obscene.

The Facebook group "Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!" is gaining members as fast as Angelina Jolie's fan club.... all of them rather put off by all of this.

The way I see it, the rules have changed. Just because you've built (and could sell for an incredible amount of cash) a social network like Facebook, doesn't mean you own it. The users own it. Facebook can learn this now, or learn it later - but learn it they will.

My advice: take the same ingenuity used to create Facebook and build a self-governance framework for users. Human beings have a remarkable capacity for self-governance when the conditions are right.

This is pretty basic chaordic theory really.... determine the minimum amount of order required, then get out of the way. Control is not the answer.

Comments

[Charlene Croft]

Interesting proposal Carman, but, Facebook is a private entity... it may be powered by users, but there is no way in hell the user is going to be given more authority than the investors.

If you look at the terms of service and privacy contract carefully, than you will see that Facebook not only claims ownership to the data we all upload, but also to the relationships and activity that occurs on there.

We can discuss this further tomorrow... look forward to it :)

[cpirie]

That's the great part about all of this, Charlene. By giving up control, the virus spreads further and faster. Both users and investors benefit.

Looking forward to the pints.

Cheers, cp