The Future of JuicyCampus

The recent focus on the web-based college campus trash-talking site, JuicyCampus, is not surprising to me at all. This is because I had heard about it from my girlfriend, whose roommate had been "featured" not-so adoringly by an anonymous poster whom proceeded to tear the girl apart. The AP article Professor Katsh sent to us mentioned that Pepperdyne University wanted to ban JuicyCampus from its network. This is absolutely silly in my opinion. Trash talk has been present in various forms for as long as humans could communicate. I'm only surprised it took this long for a web-based medium to pop up and fill the passive aggressive needs of America's college students. I can imagine that JuicyCampus is making a great deal of money based on their advertising based revenue model. So, should JuicyCampus be forced to revise itself and/or be held accountable for the messages found on the website? In short, no, I don't think so. Why can't people just exercise self-restraint and simply not look at the website if they find the comments offensive? Censoring, or forcing the site to change its ways is frivolous, as there will no doubt be a (or multiple) replacement site which pops in to fill the void. Furthermore, if JuicyCampus doesn't log the IP's of the posters (as it claims), then there truly cannot be any legal recourse for those who claim they've been slandered and want to find out who's responsible. The bottom line: JuicyCampus, or any equivalent, is here to stay.

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Admits Mistakes

This article I read recently sheds some light on the behind the scenes thought process at Facebook’s HQ. Facebook’s Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is no doubt one of the most successful .com entrepreneurs in the history of the internet. In class we have repeatedly discussed the shadier side of Facebook, such as its fine print stating that it owns anything a user uploads, or its controversial advertising scheme, Beacon, which displayed information on users shopping habits without any option to opt-out (initially). Zuckerberg recently revealed his thoughts regarding some of the failed features that the company tried to introduce. On Beacon, Zuckerberg stated "We probably got a little bit ahead of ourselves; we came across as knowing more than we really knew.” It’s refreshing to hear the CEO of a multi-billion dollar internet enterprise come clean with the failed attempt to implement what Zuckerberg, prior to Beacon’s launch, referred to as setting the standard for the advertising industry. He also discussed his thoughts on the inability to opt out of the system, "Almost all of the mistakes we made, we didn't give people enough control, we need to give people complete control over their information. The more control and the more granular the control, the more info people will share and the more we will be able to achieve our goals.” Zuckerberg’s ability to speak openly about his company’s missteps impressed me; to me it displays his resiliency and his capability to evolve his company according to the response of its users. These traits are no doubt essential to any .com enterprise in these days.

Should cyberspace have its own courts?

This is an issue which will be growing in its necessity to receive attention as the world's markets begin to blend together thanks to internet commerce. The author's experience with PayPal is no doubt an indication that the entities which exert a major influence on internet commerce (electronic payment institutions like PayPal) will have to continually revise their policies as the nature of what's "tangible" evolves. The example Julian Dibbell gives to the PayPal employee is a good example of how technology is changing the meaning. A football ticket is tangible, surely, but the experience of witnessing such a sport is just that, an experience, certainly not tangible. And yet, as the PayPal dialog displays, major institutions have yet to evolve where policies are formed with consistent logic all across the board. Personally, I don't think there needs to be a governing body for the internet. I'm a proponent of deregulation, and I believe that competition amongst electronic payment institutions (although rare for PayPal) will eventually be the stimulus needed to craft acceptable policies. If one particular institution does not cover an individual's needs, then he/she should have the option to use another carry which may. An online court system just doesn't seem necessary at this point.