[P2P-F] Fwd: New answer to "Are social networks the new platforms for social activism?"

Tue Jan 18 16:17:54 CET 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Quora <noreply at quora.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 10:15 AM
Subject: New answer to "Are social networks the new platforms for social
activism?"
To: michelsub2004 at gmail.com

[image: Quora]New answer to "Are social networks the new platforms for
social activism?"
*William Carleton*:
The answer to this question will depend, ultimately, on the interests that
those in charge of social networks choose to serve.

If choices in design and development are made to maintain the commercial
interests advertisers have in targeting messages to consumers, then, no,
social networks will be no better for social activism than any other means
of communication. Said another way: if put into the service of advertising,
then social networks will become a tool that can be used effectively, or
not, by people who are otherwise motivated to be socially active. If social
networks are a trick, a bait and switch, a way to expose users to
advertisers and direct marketers, then social networks will end up being
indifferent, able to serve good causes and repressive governments alike.

If, on the other hand, choices in design and development are relentlessly
made to privilege a user's access to relevant, uncensored, unsponsored
information, even at the expense of advertisers who would prefer to control
what is known and said on all media, then, yes, social networks can become a
platform for social activism of a qualitatively far higher order. If this
happens, then social networks become something far greater than just another
means of communication. Social networks then become exponentially more
powerful means to share, sift and analyze information than any known analog
platforms.

Today's leading social networks show a lack of ambition and an unimaginative
willingness to resuscitate 20th Century business models that might well
otherwise be exhausted by now. So it will be up to others to displace
today's leaders in social networking, or to end run them, if social
networking is going to actually improve the human condition.

Quora is a promising candidate (in part, no doubt, because it is so new and
not yet committed to a revenue model). If it stays open and permits itself
and others to iterate relentlessly on ways to gather and syndicate real time
information, it could be part of the more ambitious of the two paradigms,
the one that has social networks destroying advertising altogether.

Speaking now to those who found social networks: IMHO the place to start is
to honor authentic speech and to put the technology to the service of
natural persons. If you can afford to never make design or business choices
that compromise on those principles, you could do something relevant for the
world.

*To see the question page with all answers, visit:
http://www.quora.com/l/0kYrHJPr*

Thanks,
The Quora Team

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