1. What might you have done differently if you were in the position of artist Ken Zeran, mentioned in this chapter?
If I were Zeran I would have tried to take more legal action. I think Zeran’s case is similar to the anti-abortion group case. The anti-abortion group posted personal information like names, addresses, and license plate numbers of doctors who performed abortions on the “Nuremberg Files” website and because “true threats of violence were made with the intent to intimidate” (251) towards doctors on that site, the group was found liable. I know Zeran’s case was different in some manners but some of his personal information was also used (name and phone number) and was used as a hoax; but one where he actually got threatening phone calls. AOL didn’t take immediate action and with the fact that Zeran felt he needed security around his house for that week shows this was a serious matter; one that clearly should have had more legal action take place. I know AOL isn’t a publishing company so they technically didn’t do anything, but I still don’t understand how the anti-abortion group got charged and AOL didn’t. I would have tried to get a lawyer and taken more legal action, or maybe even started a blog like we saw in the cell phone story in Shirky’s book so at least people would see how AOL can be used against them and what the company will and won’t do to help protect you against something like this happening to you personally. A blog could have gotten more people involved so maybe legal action would have been taken against AOL.
If this were happening today, I think even above a blog, which is a social space, but one that's less social than everyone's favorite social network...
ReplyDelete... we might suggest he go to Facebook and start a page on this process.
Of course, in his time, the web was not as ubiquitous.
The important point is - the folks we pay for services don't necessarily always have the customers as their first priority - which is a concern when we "trust" them with our information.