I am a very strong believer in free speech, so I was torn after reading last week's business article on Juicycampus.com. If someone calls me a schmuck in public, I can either call them a name back or just let it slide. Or if it something specific, I can refute it. If I am not present, I can refute it later. And anyone listening can consider the source of the information to determine its credibility.
But online, things do get a little different. When something bad is said anonymously on a site like Juicycampus, there is no closing of the loop. The comment is anonymous so readers can't judge the source. Second, it is permanent so the damage lasts longer than live speech. And third, if someone Google's the person's name, they may get the comment out of context and not be able to judge its veracity or the reliability of the source.
I don't think we want to go to the extreme of holding a web site liable for what is posted. That would be too much an impediment to the development of active communities. And there are good business models that run on anonymity, especially with respect to reputation management.
And if we allow governments to subpoena the poster's identity, it eliminates the most important aspect of free speech - the ability to speak out against the government. Law enforcement access, even if a judicial warrant is required, is too potentially intimidating. Think of China or Burma.
So where is the balance? If we don't want to allow people to post anything, anywhere, completely anonymously (because then it becomes impossible to prosecute slander and libel), and we don't want to impede sites that allow anonymous postings, and we don't want to allow law enforcement to access anonymous posters' identities, then what?
My recommendation is that we just allow law enforcement to access the identity if there is probable cause of a crime (libel/slander), but not for anything else. And no fishing expeditions like the recording industry was able to get to track music file sharing. The standard of evidence needs to be strong enough to keep the Internet basically free.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Making government documents understandable
((Cross posted from my human factors blog))
Well, its not the law yet, but the House of Representatives passed the Plain Language in Government Communications Act of 2008. Now we just need the Senate at GW to join up.
The basic idea is that all government documents will now include "language that the intended audience can readily understand and use because it is clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices of plain language writing". Sounds like usability to me (and to Caroline Jarrett at Usability News - thanks for the pointer).
This is only half the battle too. Its one thing for the government to promise to make its documents user friendly. The next step is to require other people to make their contracts easy to understand and use (see my book chapter on how to do this). The lack of readable contracts is part of what got us into the credit card mess, subprime mortgage mess, health care insurance mess, and many others. We wouldn't need half as many lawyers if contracts were understandable. But of course, lawyers write the contracts, so . . . .
And for anyone who thinks that regulating contract language is anti-free market, think again. This is a strong libertarian idea. If companies had to make their contracts understandable to their intended customers, those customers could be freed to sign up for any kind of contract they want (except for the universal taboos like slavery etc). They would know what they are getting themselves into and be "allowed" to make that choice.
The reason we need regulation that actually limits behavior is because customers don't/can't understand the fine print. So we have to prevent companies from putting nasty stuff in that fine print. But if the customer understands all of the details and still wants to enter into the agreement, why not let them? This only works when we have understandability.
This new Act is a good first step. Go Congress Go !!!
Well, its not the law yet, but the House of Representatives passed the Plain Language in Government Communications Act of 2008. Now we just need the Senate at GW to join up.
The basic idea is that all government documents will now include "language that the intended audience can readily understand and use because it is clear, concise, well-organized, and follows other best practices of plain language writing". Sounds like usability to me (and to Caroline Jarrett at Usability News - thanks for the pointer).
This is only half the battle too. Its one thing for the government to promise to make its documents user friendly. The next step is to require other people to make their contracts easy to understand and use (see my book chapter on how to do this). The lack of readable contracts is part of what got us into the credit card mess, subprime mortgage mess, health care insurance mess, and many others. We wouldn't need half as many lawyers if contracts were understandable. But of course, lawyers write the contracts, so . . . .
And for anyone who thinks that regulating contract language is anti-free market, think again. This is a strong libertarian idea. If companies had to make their contracts understandable to their intended customers, those customers could be freed to sign up for any kind of contract they want (except for the universal taboos like slavery etc). They would know what they are getting themselves into and be "allowed" to make that choice.
The reason we need regulation that actually limits behavior is because customers don't/can't understand the fine print. So we have to prevent companies from putting nasty stuff in that fine print. But if the customer understands all of the details and still wants to enter into the agreement, why not let them? This only works when we have understandability.
This new Act is a good first step. Go Congress Go !!!
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