Clearly, some tools can be less safe than others. It's never purely the tool's fault, as people's motivations also are in play. Guns, typewriters. and lawn darts are tools.
Still, it's possible to design tools to prevent certain types of abuses, since coded behavior is an embodiment of rules.
While it may be potentially authoritarian to permit posters or admins to squelch all opposition, the other extreme of permissive posting would enable mob rule capable of harassing individuals on their own journals. As well, in a democratic or anarchic system, there's nothing preventing people from collectively deciding to be assholes. I'd say we're still in the infancy of designing online systems to favor constructive discourse. And anyone who disagrees is, of course, a doo-doo head. Heh.
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zvi
(no subject)
Date: 2006-10-15 10:42 pm (UTC)Still, it's possible to design tools to prevent certain types of abuses, since coded behavior is an embodiment of rules.
While it may be potentially authoritarian to permit posters or admins to squelch all opposition, the other extreme of permissive posting would enable mob rule capable of harassing individuals on their own journals. As well, in a democratic or anarchic system, there's nothing preventing people from collectively deciding to be assholes. I'd say we're still in the infancy of designing online systems to favor constructive discourse. And anyone who disagrees is, of course, a doo-doo head. Heh.