Identity

Social Media Clarity Podcast – E03 – Real Names for Social Order? Guest: Dr. Bernie Hogan (@blurky)

By Marc Smith


The Social Media Clarity Podcast has just released a new episode:

Save our Pseudonyms! Social Media Clarity S01E03

This is the “Real Names for Social Order?” episode, featuring guest sociologist: Dr. Bernie Hogan (@blurky) from the Oxford Internet Institute speaking with host Randy Farmer (@frandallfarmer) along with me & Bryce Glass (@bryceglass).

Building on the second episode which focused on the changes at the Huffington Post’s comment posting policy, in episode 3 we talk with Bernie Hogan who explains why sociologists are concerned by “context collapse” – the loss of the ability to be different people for different people – caused by social media.  Sociological research suggests this is not a positive thing because humans have always maintained different roles for different groups of people and not all roles are commensurate.  While time and place once kept separate roles separate, today the net makes any interaction into every interaction.

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Data Bank or Data Pimp: choosing the future of social media repositories

By Marc Smith

The Key Bank Vault door or http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/2274922356/?

Are social media sites data banks, secure repositories of personal assets, or data pimps, soliciting intimate exposure for profit?

I think these services need to choose.  I notice that the setting for who can see what in various systems is in flux.  I can set something to private today and may have to reset it keep it private later.

When I upload content to a site, shouldn’t the expectation be that the deposit is governed by the terms at the time of the contribution?  Why should terms change after I upload?  At least, shouldn’t new rules apply only to new content or content explicitly that has had permissions altered.

Banks do lend out the money I provide them, but only in an anonymous way.  No one knows my dollars are in their mortgage or car loan.  Only legally authorized entities can see my banking records (or so I hope).

Data pimps seem to want to give away anything I give up.  They sell my data as quickly and for as much as possible.

Banks have now developed a reputation that does not make them a great contrast for data pimps, but they still try to represent values like security, confidentiality, and reliability.

I have personally assumed that all data I upload is public.  Only my pictures of my kids have been made “private” and I would not be surprised if those pictures ultimately become public.

Photo credit: cambodia4kidsorg

Book: Communities in Cyberspace – Ten Years Later

By Marc Smith

When the late Peter Kollock and I published Communities in Cyberspace with Routledge in 1999 there were few broadband connections, no iPhones, and little WiFi.  Today, there is an ebook version of the book and Amazon sells a version for the Kindle, a device it was hard to even imagine when the book was written.  Google lets you browse most of it and search all of it.  But the key ideas of the volume:  identity, interaction, collective action and emergent order remain relevant in a wireless broadband netbook mobile social network real-time web world.  The book is now ten years old.

I. Introduction

Introduction to Communities in Cyberspace, Peter Kollock and Marc Smith

“Since 1993, computer networks have grabbed enormous public attention. The major news and entertainment media have been filled with stories about the “information superhighway” and of the financial and political fortunes to be made on it. Computer sales continue to rise and more and more people are getting connected to “the Net”. Computer networks, once an obscure and arcane set of technologies used by a small elite, are now widely used and the subject of political debate, public interest, and popular culture. The “information superhighway” competes with a collection of metaphors that attempt to label and define these technologies. Others, like “cyberspace,” “the Net,” “online,” and “the web,” highlight different aspects of network technology and its meaning, role and impact. Whichever term is used, it is clear that computer networks allow people to create a range of new social spaces in which to meet and interact with one another.”

More details from the book…

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