Indirect Manipulation

I’m not done talking about Andrew Keen’s book. The reaction from all sides has been most intriguing, even on this here blog. There are those who insist that Keen is suggesting a sort of police state to monitor the quality of web content. Others eulogize the passing of an era where credentials and talent actually count for something.

In order to fully appreciate the meaning of Keen’s intentions, you have to understand that he isn’t necessarily calling for an initiative to govern the production of digital content. You also need to recognize a possible failing of the wisdom of crowds: as participants become more familiar with a system they tend to pattern their responses accordingly—not as independent thinkers, but by how the data predicts they will behave. Bokardo mentions this in an essay on the failure of Web 2.0 applications to fulfill their socially-driven intent:

One of the big promises of aggregating the wisdom of crowds is building systems that use the input from huge user populations to come up with value. However, as people get used to how the wisdom is aggregated, they figure out how it all works, and the more public the mechanism for aggregation, the easier it is to figure out. That’s why gaming is such an issue with Digg. The voting on Digg is public, so you can see which items have the most votes before you submit your vote yourself.

Then you have this thoughtful review by John-Paul Flintoff of the UK Times Online, eulogizing the passing of an era where accuracy of source material is the prime directive of all research studies. Again, I’m not saying I agree or disagree; I just find the debate fascinating as it continues to effervesce:

Wikipedia is full of mistakes, half truths and misunderstandings. What happens if you try to do something about it? William Connolley, a climate modeller at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge and an expert on global warming, disagreed with a Wikipedia editor over a particular entry on the site. After trying to correct inaccuracies Connolley was accused of trying to remove “any point of view which does not match his own”. Eventually he was limited to making just one edit a day.

Arbitrating on the dispute, Wikipedia gave no weight to his expertise, and treated him with the same credibility as his anonymous opponent. “The consequences of this dismissal of traditional, credentialed experts are both chilling and absurd,” says Keen … Wikipedia is premised on a contrary theory of truth that would have seemed familiar to George Orwell: if the crowd says that two plus two equals five, then two plus two really does equal five.

Okay! All that being said, I want to take just a moment to mention a new and exciting effort. I imagine that Mr. Keen would be deeply troubled that I am further polluting the digital airspace with my omphaloskeptical babblings. However, my meager contributions have been mitigated by the mighty efforts of Dave Solon and Ted Mannino, longtime colleagues and cherished friends to whom I owe my entire career. Unintended Consequences is the name of the collective, our first discussion is available on iTunes, and I sincerely hope you find something of value in our effort.

Go back to the Indirect Manipulation home page.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Idiomatic Behavior, World Leader Pretend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.