Do we need a Bill of Rights for the social web?
There is no doubt everyone wants to feel comfortable when they are using social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster etc. The social networking brings not only opportunities to conduct our own media and social network but also provides more challenging market in favor of consumers. As Scoble says there is no rule book for blogging and this is “Come as you are conversations”. The authenticity is the core value that makes blogging such a new and different way for business to communicate. As much as being real and accurate in blogging, both companies and individuals reach to”success”. There are many examples of blogging by companies and individuals but now they have been realizing the value of social networking. For instance, Cisco Systems, a Silicon Valley heavyweight, plans to announce one of its most unusual deals: it is buying the technology assets of Tribe.net, a mostly forgotten social networking site, according to people close to the companies’ discussions.
Opportunities, Challenges and Risks
Once we carry this issue through social networking platform we also need to think about risks and rights for users of the Social Web. Let’s question the attractiveness of Facebook and other networking sites. Why they are so popular and addictive? Why MySpace attracts 70 million users, why Facebook has 27 million uniques?
What is Facebook’s secret sauce?
Is an enthusiasm knowing more and more about others who might be our friends, associates, family or their network? Supposedly I know who are close friend of mine. I already know their interests, backgrounds and current activities. How about the person who I do not know him/her that much or do not see for a while or have any single clue about? Am I strongly interested in their identities? I think we need to make rigid description of “FRIENDSHIP” in this point.
First, I need to categorize my friends as how much intense and extent ties with me. We can aggregate them as “Top Friends” or classify in different place. According to Jeff Jarvis, Facebook is a confused social space for that because there are too many different facets of personality being exposed through social openness. I agree with that. Whatever I make any configuration or change on my profile it is accessible through newsfeed for not only my friends but everyone. This point needs to be managed.
“BEFRIEND”
Moreover people can get invitations from people who actually are not their friends anymore or never have been. How are they going to deal with that? If they are not able to make decision whether they would accept this invitation or not by themselves they will not feel secure and comfortable while using their network place. The only solution is befriending someone but this time it is look like a discriminating someone. If I do this publicly I could be punished to do that somehow. This creates many misconceptions.
“Are Identities under the risk of theft?”
The another risk is identity theft. Some users of Facebook and MySpace routinely place information such as their date of birth,relationship status, locale, workplace and work history or even their address,email and phone number, right in their profile without any restrictions about who sees it.”
I really liked the way of this description on social networking: “People don’t put a sign on their front yard or apartment door listing the dates they’ll be away on vacation and all of their personal data. But, “people are doing just that through the growing phenomenon of social networking Internet sites, where members post pictures and current information about themselves as a way of keeping in touch and sharing information with “real world” friends, business associates, family and classmates,” states Grant Thornton senior forensic manager David Malamed. http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/October2007/01/c6097.html
For all those purposes we strongly need to have an ownership of our own personal information such as own profile data, the list of people we are connected to and activity stream of content we create. Control of whether and how such personal information is shared with others; and Freedom to grant persistent access to their personal information to trusted external sites as they are the requirements of A Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web.
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