Corporate Anti Hero

Via Brian's post at eco-geek I've just stumbled upon the Chris Locke / Kathy Sierra controversy.

To sum it up, Kathy Sierra writes an excellent blog about product design, technology and community. Chris Locke writes surrealist material about marketing and was a co-author of the cluetrain manifesto. Chris and a group of collaborators founded a couple of blogs the point of which seemed to be to lay into people they didn't much like in ways best described as extreme and juvenile but which they presumably felt were perhaps satirical, surrealist and challenging. Or something. I don't know, I didnt' read it and now it's been deleted.

Threats of murder and rape appeared on these blogs aimed at Kathy. Kathy took them seriously, called the police, cancelled public speaking engagements and complained; at which point there was some initially moderation that was so weak as to be 'aiding and abbetting' and finally someone (possibly Chris) did the right thing and took them down..

This is important because it touches on a lot of things that really matter about the internet. For all the talk about community there's still a lot of stuff missing. Physical reality is the main one. If these threats had been made to Kathy's face she could have identified her attackers. If they had been delivered to her house the police could have investigated. To make the threats would have involved crossing a great many lines, social norms would have had to be broken and risks taken. That's why in the real world threats are rare and get taken very seriously.

On the internet threats are common. As Brian says we get lots at work, and we ignore them. On the other hand at work it's easy to understand that they're aimed at the organisation not the individual, that they're the work of bored teenagers not psychopaths. Sometimes Greenpeace staff get real death threats, from organisations that really do kill people they don't like. We've learned to take those seriously and deal with them. To date I don't know of any that have come via the internet. Still, back to the internet.

It seems to me that the internet has made far more common a role where people's personal and professional lives are rolled into one. Where a community of friends is also a business community. For reasons of trust and transparency such people don't blog anonymously, they do it under their real names. This is important, it makes them responsible for what they say and who they associate with.

The postings attacking Kathy were anonymous, but the owners and operators of the site they appeared on were known. If those people wouldn't tell her who was making the threats then she had only one option and that was to publically call them out on it. I find it hard to believe that the owners didn't know the real identity of the attackers, and had they any guts at all they'd name them and let them answer for their words. They didn't.

The interesting thing is that the owners of the site are now moaning that people object to their behaviour. Chris Locke would like some transparency about what he's about to be lynched for. Jeanne Sessum seems upset that associating with people who make death threats (however minimally) has led to her being associated with people who make death threats. So finally, much later than in the real world the community is going to exercise some sanctions. People who displayed (at the least) some astoundingly bad judgement are going to suffer.

That's a poor second for not having the social conventions to prevent this stuff in the first place, but it might be some kind of progress.

Frank Paynter, who I have only ever heard of in relation to this apparently tried to exercise some control. But here's the thing, when you bring a bunch of people together and set them loose to do whatever they want you have a choice. Either the group is self regulating in which case you are all resonsible for each other, or it's regulated, in which case people get thrown out for misbehaviour, or its not regulated at all, in which case you get what you deserve. I occasionally spend my afternoons moderating comments on the Greenpeace blogs. Sometimes once I've thrown out the hate filled bile there's not a lot left. The odd thing is it never crossed my mind to think that hate filled bile was something I might want to publish or take responsibility for. It seems some folks would disagree with at least half that statement.