Social Media is Antisocial Media
Last week a number of NSW Corrective Services Officers received disciplinary letters from The Department of Corrective Services (my (thankfully) former employer) for forming a Facebook group that opposed the privatisation of Australia’s prisons (making money off people in detention is barbaric and dangerous – but that is for another post).
The officers at the centre of the furore said it was no different to a bunch of workers going to the pub at the end of the day and having a gripe. However, this is not exactly true – there is one key difference, and that’s proof. Social media is almost exclusively written (published), and as someone once said to me “Google is forever” – that once an opinion is out there in the social media space it’s out there for good. The opinion of these officers – because it was written down in social media means they were at risk of being fired.
It’s not just with the officers above, but also anyone who wants to give an opinion, or share a point of view, must now be increasingly careful of what they say. Even if the original point of view is mentioned only verbally, with Twitterers, Vloggers, Bloggers ect all looking for something sensational to write about (content) – the potential repercussion of any comment people make is both a) amplified, and b) made much more difficult to predict.
Ultimately this fosters a culture of nervousness, with people unsure of what to say. What will or will not be amplifed, and how? Ultimately leading to the suppression of thought, just like the Thought Police in 1984 – people whose views are unusual or dissenting are outed by others – sometimes with a mob like mentality. Are we therefore being the thought police against each other?
Further, this is exacerbated via anonymity. Under the cloak of anonymity people can say whatever they like. Unfortunately, this further suppresses the sharing of ideas, and expression of the individual – as no one wants to be bullied. This bullying can range from the comments on industry specific blogs (in our case Campaign Brief and Mumbrella) to the tragic cyber bullying that exists in the school yard – all very antisocial media.
Finally, as mentioned before – to get a voice in social media (and I guess in particular the Blogosphere you don’t need to be right – just loud, sensational, nasty, aggressive or fear mongering. I’ve written about this previously here. People need to be held accountable somehow for what they say.
I’m a fan of both free speech and carefully considered censorship. These are at least two of the issues that need to be considered in deciding how to regulate the content of social media.
Fritz Bachen is a Consumer Psychologist and Founding Partner at Naked Communications. Fritz can be seen, read or heard at; The Gruen Transfer, ABC Radio (Sunday nights), Adnews columnist, as well as The Australian, Cleo, Mumbrella, Shop Till You Drop and so on. He speaks at numerous conferences on marketing, ideas, contemporary culture, and consumer behaviour. Fritz has degress in clinical psychology and commerce (marketing). A registered psychologist and has worked in private practice, forensic settings, advertising (Saatchi & Saatchi) and marketing consultancy (Added Value). He was also state under 12 chess champion on WA, and has a board game called The Analyst selling well in the Benelux countries.
Comments
Matt Moore
Apr 5th, 2009I hope the government steps in and regulates what is said on the Internet
Fritz – Can you outline exactly what censorship regime you would like the government (I assume the Australian govt) to enact and how they would go about doing it?
Fritz Bachen
Apr 5th, 2009Hi Matt, Im not sure what kind of regulation would work best – it’s an extremely difficult situation. However, I’m going to edit that comment out of the orginal post. Perhaps there are other forms of regulation that may be more effective??
Katie Harris
Apr 5th, 2009This is a fascinating topic.
There’s some great food for thought over at Jonathan Crossfield’s blog too;
http://www.jonathancrossfield.com/blog/2009/02/five-internet-legal-myths-dispelled.html
Daniel Oyston
Apr 5th, 2009It occurred to me the other day how the employees would feel if their boss started a Facebook group, with other bosses joining, that was “my employees are all lazy arses”. Pretty sure the “oh, its just like we would discuss at the pub” defence would wash.
On your point about “getting a voice” I think you are right, at the moment. However, I wonder whether as the space matures, those who are loud, aggressive, etc will start to lose their appeal.
At the moment it feels a little like being a school with a handful of cool kids a lot of others look up to. But most of the time, in the long run, those cool kids are exposed for the shallow and materialistic people they are (generalization there but am sure you get the point) and end up with not very many strong relationships with people.
Matt Moore
Apr 6th, 2009Fritz – I'd rather you didn't edit the comment out but it's your blog.
There are generally 2 ways that human societies regulate behaviour:
- Explicit laws. These are expensive to develop and enforce but sometimes they are necessary.
- Implicit norms. These can be very effective but they generally work best with homogeneous populations with shared values in relatively static environments.
Americans is a nation based on laws (with lots of norms). Japan is a nation based on norms (with lots of laws).
My question is: What mix of norms & laws do we need in this space?
I think you need to take a complexity perspective to this (a la Snowden or Stacey) but that's a rant for another time.
Daniel – **** the cool kids. Let's start our own gang. Shall we let Katie & Fritz be in it?
Tessa
Apr 7th, 2009I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Ruth
http://muffinsnow.com
Daniel Oyston
Apr 7th, 2009@Matt, I always wanted to be in a gang. But lets not just let anyone join. Fritz and Katie need to prove themselves worthy … smells like a dare!
Matt Moore
Apr 7th, 2009Fritz – I have changed my mind. Based on Tessa’s comment, I propose we that we enact a law banning the sale of muffins. Or at the very least those that spam comments threads so unimaginately.
Daniel – A dare huh? What did you have in mind? I have a practical joke involving a certain bald, globally renowned marketing blogger if you’re interested…
Fritz Bachen
Apr 7th, 2009Tessa or Ruth, thanks for your very kind comments. We actually work for a muffin client – it might be good to get your input sometime?
To the others – I was never cool at school (hence my obsession with it) and the thought of creating an exclusive gang brings me out in hives.
However, as thought gets more controlled through peer to peer censorship (how ironic is that) other conversations may well need to move underground. Or perhaps I’ve had one to many coffees this morning?
Matt Moore
Apr 8th, 2009I judged Tessa-Ruth too harshly. How could we ban behaviour that leads to comments threads such as this? http://pointmarketing1.blogspot.com/2009/03/using-internet-to-grow-your-business.html#comments
Tessa
Apr 8th, 2009I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Ruth
http://besttoddler.com
Fritz Bachen
Apr 12th, 2009Tessa is this some weird kind of spamming technique.
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