Lee Siegel, author of Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob was bullied when he wrote about his views online which challenged the beliefs held by many bloggers, YouTube performers, and social networkers. It was, for him, a case of publish and be damned.
Watch the web extended interview by clicking this link -
You can also read the BBC story there too.
I think Lee raises some very important points here. As a supporter of the increasinlgy social aspect of the web I must also admit that in many cases there is a race to the bottom, and Lee in his BBC interview promoting his new book articulates this dillema better than I ever could. These concerns, along with stories of the explosion of usage, the vast unmoderated tidal wave of User Generated Content (UGC), ever lower costs to entry (in terms of ease of use and financial) means that digital content has essentially zero value to the end user and in many cases the publisher/originator.
This is OK if what you want is essentially always free access to content - whaterver it is. But when the codfied database of the web is expected to double every 11 days by 2010 then how the well do actually sort the wheat from the chaff, considering most of what is User Generated is, basically, garbage? How do we begin to avoid the scenarios Lee talks about and ensure that moderate voices can be heard and that original perspectives can be encouraged and not shouted down by the loudest voices?
I think this is the biggest challenge for 'net content providers and users over the next few years.
For Siegel, the online world is not so much inhabited by us as by our egos, which are slowly destroying civilization.
Drowning voices
It is not just teenagers making videos. Many of us have carefully-crafted profiles designed to attract others on social networking sites.
Siegel believes our egos are now running riot on the web.
We have started to kick back at anyone who may try to lead us, or try to inform us. We will not be told.
Siegel points to the rise of the blog.
Strong opinions need little research or fact checking, yet the blog has quickly gained influence. He fears this trend will reduce what the truth is to whoever shouts the loudest.
"I think that's very, very dangerous because there are experts. No-one would talk of citizen heart surgeons, for example," he says. "But on the internet they talk of citizen journalists, because it seems that anyone can take up a keyboard and write a story.
"If the only truth is the result of the strongest, most emphatic assertion, what happens to the patient, soft spoken, contemplative people? They'll get drowned out."
Rational review
Lee Siegel knows his book is controversial but only because few people have questioned the net's show-offs and bullies.
"Unlike earlier transformative technologies, like radio and television, the internet has not been subjected to critical examination. It has escaped that.
"I think it's time to look rationally and level headed at this thing and talks about its dark side as well as its virtues," he says.
