One of the biggest internet fantasies is that of self-policing. Some say the internet is democratic because it allows the majority to monitor and filter the activities of the minority who might be in need of policing. This is evidenced through the different ways of reporting people who misuse common sites, such as Facebook where you can submit someone or an activity for review or AOL who used to employ and enforce TOS (Terms of Service) for misbehavers. For sites like those, the fantasy is able to be a reality.
Yahoo's territorial actions remind me of this concept. For Yahoo, the fantasy can be only that for its search features. It can realistically monitor its features for their discussion boards, but search can't be regulated. The reality is that the results of the searches should monitor themselves, the way Facebook and AOL have. It is the responsibility of the individual sites to monitor themselves in regards to the regulations of the countries they are based in, rather than the responsibility of Yahoo, who has a global obligation to return results for the searches, regardless of where the results are based in. It's impossible to make blanket statements for fantasies and realities because of examples like this.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think you really touched on something important when you said that it is the responsibility of the individual sites to monitor themselves. Yahoo does indeed have a global obligation to return results for searches and I don not think that they should be held accountable for the content in their search results. After all, there website is based on a algorithm that aims to provide links to websites that match best with user search terms.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your point. Expecting Yahoo! to comply with the rules and regulations is absolutely ridiculous. I think people are in denial if they think that kind of policing of the net is even possible. I often get random, Spam messages through Skype, and I always "report" them, but I never really know what happens after. If they get enough complaints do they finally do something? Maybe the endless comlaints are never addressed. Perhaps the companies just put the "complaint" option there just to calm the anger of harassed users and make them think something is actually being done.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great observation. It should be the site's responsibility to monitor rather than yahoo or some other search engine. That type of delegation will make things much easier.
ReplyDelete