Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

David Gerard — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:11:27 -0000

The essential fallacy in this post and the post it's responding to is the notion that Wikipedia is a democracy, or an experiment in online governance. It's not, except inadvertently. It's a project to write an encyclopedia. Everything else is a means to that end. If it means kicking off a POV-pushing nutter like thousands of others, even if this one happens to have his own bully pulpit, too bad for him. And so it goes.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Cure Dream — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:48:09 -0000

There are limits to free speech.

Being a global warming denier is like being a holocaust denier, but it's worse, because this holocaust hasn't happened yet, and we can still do something about it.

Society has feedback loops that detect problems and help us implement solutions before problems become unmanagable. For the last decade or so there has been a large, politically-motivated, effort by certain large corporations to prevent action on global warming.

You know the old example of yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded auditorium... Well, this is worse. It's like there's a fire in the auditorium, and a group of people are conspiring to:

* disable the fire alarm
* cut the phone lines so people can't call the fire station
* try to stop people from running to the fire station to get help
* put roadblocks in the way of the fire trucks

Now the fire chief has just come crashing through the door and is yelling "FIRE!" and the global warming deniers are shouting him down, claiming loudly that their "Freedom of Speech" is being violated.

Global warming deniers have already created hundreds of billions of dollars of liability, and it may go on to the trillions. Someday you may face civil or criminal prosecution.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

karl — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:23:55 -0000

This is democracy in its initial meaning. The thing is that democracy doesn't protect of anything, and it's whyâ€¦ Republics have been created.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Rives — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:44:18 -0000

You took the good lessons from democracy!:)

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Wayne Smallman — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:24:50 -0000

Mark, well done with a very balanced and thought-provoking piece.

There's little doubt that information is, to all intents & purposes, a weapon.

And the suppression of information is arguably more damaging...

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

housebolt — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:52:53 -0000

You've just wrote what I've been thinking for a long time. I stopped reading Digg awhile ago because it was so incredibly frustrating to see such a one-sided viewpoint on everything from politics to global "climate change" to computer operating systems. If you don't agree with a popular assertion, you're wrong, and you're not only wrong, you're an idiot and you should be thrown out the window from the 10th floor.

The question I ask myself is where is the line between "democracy" and mob rule. My answer, at least for now, is that there is no line - they're one and the same. Direct democracy is dangerous. Hence the reason we don't live in a direct democracy here in the U.S., and not one direct democracy in history has ever survived. Luckily, the internet is open enough right now that opinions can still be expressed freely, just not on certain sites. But how long will that last?

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Streaker — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:28:51 -0000

Well, democracy kind of stinks, you know? It's 'mob rules' and that's never good.

Representational republics are always better, though not perfect.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Cookiemouse — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:09:15 -0000

If they are both doomed then I think it should be "are" at least in Blighty, but if it (Democracy and the Social Web) is doomed then I'd go with "is." In German you could say Das Democratischesozialesnetz, which would make it quite clear what you mean, Maybe?

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Guest — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:34:00 -0000

Sorry to be "that guy," but shouldn't your title be, "Are Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?" That is, instead of "Is?"

I know no one cares, and all the bloggers on Mashable.com write little errors here and there in every post (like your misuse of "disingenuous", missing hyphenation of "anything-goes-publicly-editable", and misspelling of "alleviating"). However, the big errors make you sound uneducated (e.g. subject-verb disagreement in the title). Set an example for the grammar crisis of the Web. Just take another pass before you post.

I apologize again. I like this site, and its popularity obviously isn't influenced by grammar. I don't really mean to miss the forest for the trees.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

teajay — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:13:07 -0000

An interesting article. I largely agree with it.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Kane Cable — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:04:52 -0000

I think the problem stems from the "type" of person that wants to contribute to these sites.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Cookiemouse — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 05:23:09 -0000

As a political movement anarchy is actually very well organized. Direct action has to be to succeed. The real deate is about freedom versus authority, in which authority uses the stick of terror and the carrot of security to try to domesticate us.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

CrisisOfFaith — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:41:00 -0000

I'm generally asocial, or maybe anti-social in person, and unfortunately, tend to find myself the same online. I enjoy the initial discourse an online forum presents, but as more and more people join a social network and voice their opinions, it loses focus, and generally dissolves to uneducated, opinionated, ignorant statements which really detract from the experience.
As with a lot of real-life social constructs where too much importance is placed on the validity of every individual, the lowest common denomitor becomes the norm. I firmly believe in the validity of the individual, but I question their knowledge, expertise and agenda on each issue.
It's an incredibly interesting phenomenon in general!

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

JimmyHendricks — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:25:09 -0000

It seems unfocused how the title states Social Web, but immediately drills in on Social Media which is a subsect of this. Social Media will have a hard time remaining democratic because everyone has an agenda in the media or a cause that they are biased to in the media. In the whole Social Web it is vibrant and well and alot of companies who harness this will really create strong product loyalty and development. We are seeing it in the clothing space with my company and I think alot of product companies are going to make some amazing things happen in the next few years by democratizing development. Customers get more involved and companies make what people want, not what they think the people want. In media on the other hand, it will always be a losing battle.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Tomboys — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:47:21 -0000

I agree with link. I think most people on Social Sites start out with an agenda. Some of us stay on sites like plurk cause we generally like the community however. I am speaking for myself of course.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Ling — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:18:37 -0000

I won't get into the politics of it, but this I will say - there's no such thing as pure democracy on sites like wikipedia and on social networks. There are people who sell their 'street creds' on Wikipedia, and will get your stuff into the pages for a fee.

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Mario Olckers — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:00:29 -0000

Very insightful article and making one think about the direction in which things are moving on the internet and the wider world.
One important point made is about the level of education of mobs when it comes to understanding the issues at hand and being easily manipulated into voting a very unsuitable regime into power as happened in South Africa where the majority black population voted into power an incompetent and corrupt anc alliance who are ruining the country with it's disastrous policies and because of the mob rule principle mediocrity rules and the competent few are simply ignored or actively persecuted and silenced

Re: Is Democracy and the Social Web Doomed?

Michelle Greer — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:58:43 -0000

I don't think Wikipedia's ideology is wrong. The current administration is conservative and perhaps sways more weight than they should. It has forced more liberal types online. There are a lot of conservatives out there; they just aren't the types to edit Wikipedia entries. If we see a shift to mainstream society that does not see "liberal" as a bad word, perhaps we will see more conservatives in spaces like Wikipedia.