Assignment 2 Submissions

Submission Instructions

Please note that we have updated the final project page's FAQ section based on some student questions that have come to us over the past week.

This assignment is due on March 3rd. Grading for this assignment is on a 5-point scale; late assignments will be docked 1 point for each day they are late (assignments submitted 4 days late or later will have a maximum grade of 1 point).

Please name your file "wikiusername_Assignment2," where "wikiusername" is replaced with your username, to avoid overwriting someone else's assignment or causing errors in the Wiki by including forbidden characters. So if your username is "jdoe" and your file is a Word document your file should be named "jdoe_Assignment2.doc."

Upload your rough draft here: Upload file. If you have trouble finding the file you uploaded, check the list of uploaded files.

In the submissions section below please post the following information:

• Name or pseudonym:
• Prospectus title:
• Link to prospectus: (add your link here)

Comments

Everyone will receive an additional participation grade for this assignment. You should read through everyone's proposals after they are uploaded and add constructive comments below the proposal on which you're commenting. Comments should be submitted by March 10th so you have time to incorporate them, if applicable, into your project outline. Please remember to sign your comments by adding four tildes (~~~~) to the end of your contribution. This will automatically add your username and the date/time of your post. If we don't know who you are we can't give you credit for finishing this assignment!

Ryan Hurley

Facebook & Big Data vs. Your Privacy

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Prospectus_FB_and_privacy_Assignment_2.docx

Rhurls (talk) 16:06, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Ryan, Great topic choice. Without fail, every single time I have a class on Big Data I obsessively delete aspects of my online presence, cut up frequent customer member cards, and google myself. It’s a hilarious cycle. I am so excited to read your paper and I appreciate the range of content you have considered for the paper, as well as the range of your references. I have an online text for another IT class that has a chapter devoted to FaceBook and their privacy issues. Please, email me and I can send it to you. Also, make sure to keep in mind that FaceBook’s relationships with advertisers and users are changing constantly. A three year old article might give you more context for your research, but very likely reports on policies that are out of date. Batjarks (talk) 18:38, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Ryan, Great work, I think this is a very interesting area, I think that facebook does in a way uses information to target ads, and also the fact that it associates you with people that you may know is a relevant fact. As far as privacy issues, it would be a good idea to study the subscription agreement to see what is is said with reference to the idea of paying with information, or kind of like the purpose at hand of facebook. Excellent work, I think that you may be benefited from finding a community in which you can show how this problem is handled to contrast, that just an idea.

Edwin (Edwinduque (talk) 19:56, 9 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Hi Ryan – your topic is a very interesting one, and it’s something that I think about a lot as a Facebook user. It will be specifically interesting to see how this manifests itself on a page like Nike’s, where users are particularly engaged with information around new product releases and ad campaigns. I’m curious to see the difference between the information Facebook is able to glean from users engaging with a brand versus what Nike can glean – my hunch is that Facebook is privy to much more information, but they then use it to inform their advertising decisions, which could then affect Nike. I would be curious to hear for sure, though, as you do more research. One other thing that might be worth exploring is the devil’s advocate perspective – that is, are there any ways that Facebook sharing your information with brands could be helpful? Every so often, I see a Facebook ad targeted to me that actually interests me, and in that case, it has benefited me as a consumer. In that sense, the system is working exactly as it was meant to. What’s the benefit versus the cost? Good luck, and I’m intrigued to hear more as you continue to develop the project.

Beccalew (talk) 06:32, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

Ryan- I like your topic of Facebook and privacy as this is something that interests many, if not all of us. Several times I have logged into my Facebook and there are advertisments directly suited for me-- although interesting and something I would normally click on, the idea of privacy does comes up. One thing I recommend is to look into the settings tab as I believe there are different ways to control the information shared with others-- it may not be entirely obvious to control but certain settings allow certain information to be shared (or not shared) so you may want to do some deep research with that. I look forward to reading your research! -Caroline Cbore001 (talk) 09:58, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Ryan,

Your topic of choice (brand pages on Facebook) is interesting. The brand pages are marketing tools and the companies would certainly love to learn as much as they could about the page’s visitors.

I know someone who runs a Facebook brand page for their small business and he said that a brand page provides data analytics on it. It allows him to learn about demographic information of people who like his page (age, location) and how effective his FB posts are. It sounds about on par with the kind of information other websites are tracking when people visit their sites, so I’m looking forward to seeing what you can unearth about those brand pages.

Rpeisch (talk) 13:42, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Ryan,

The topic you chose is very interesting, since it's a current concern that most of social media users have. What I liked the most was the focus you decided to give to your project, which comprises the study on how a particular brand community page can use users personal information without their “explicit” consent in order to create more targeted advertising. That's a very interesting perspective and I suggest you to study the limit of responsibility between Facebook and the brand that owners the page regarding privacy.

Good work!

njalbut (talk) 17:44, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Olivia Brinich

Intentions and Outcomes of Youtube’s Copyright and Coding Regulations

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Oliviabrinich_prospectus03.03.15.pdf

Oliviabrinich (talk) 15:51, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Comments on Olivia's Prospectus:

Hi Olivia,

Let me start by saying I think that Youtube is a great source for your project. I’m not saying that just because I am doing my paper on Youtube. I find the creative ways that people are using it fascinating. Much more so than some of the other platforms.

If I may summarize, you plan to discuss how legal pressures forced Youtube to introduce technologies that changed the user experiences, like Copyright ID. You also mentioned some other (possibly voluntary) technologies that are part of the user experience with the intent to discuss how they impact users. I think they are good ideas and good concepts to write about.

As you rightly point the Youtube community is one of the largest communities on the Internet. I wonder if it might not be taking on too much to try to examine Youtube as a whole. I would suggest selecting a small group that is susceptible to the effects of the technologies you are reviewing. Describe who the group is and how certain characteristics of their make-up or user experience make them particularly sensitive to the technologies you will focus on.

For example I will be focusing on hobbyist inventors. Guys that spend their weekends in the garage putting “junk” together and posting videos about their “inventions” on Youtube. Their content is all original so they are not impacted by Copyright ID. There is very little thumbs up/down. They are a much more “expressive” crowd as the comments indicate.

I’m not trying to discourage you. I think if you pick the right group and tell us why you picked them, it can very interesting. I hope that is helpful.

Best,

RMarkow (talk) 19:47, 4 March 2015 (EST)

---

I Olivia, I think that this is a very interesting topic, it revolves around the idea of how you tube deals with privacy, and the balance of how it benefits itself vs. the users. I think that one interesting part I read from your prospectus, and you can also incorporate this idea, was how copyright is dealt in you tube, the idea of how deal when someone may alter or damages someone else's work with out permission, those are certainly great areas, so I think the question would be whether you tube creates a risk to the privacy rights of users as well as copy rights risks and how this could be dealt. Great work.

Edwin (20:02, 9 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Oliva- nice topic-- youtube is something that interests us all so it will be interesting to read your paper. I, too, am curious with how youtube as a whole determines copyright and when they need to step in. You may want to research on the web if there are artcles on videos that have been taken down due to copyright. It will be interrsting to see when and why the copyright came into play. looks great- good luck! -Caroline Cbore001 (talk) 12:22, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Olivia, I really like the options you can explore with this interesting topic! The one thing that stuck out to me in the prospectus was the "significant events" comment at the end. What will make these events significant?

---

• Erika L Rich

• Title: Reputation Management and Ethical Considerations for Members of the Internet Marketing Super Friends (IMSF) Facebook Group

• Link: File:LSTU E120 Erika Rich Assignment 2.docx

ErikaLRich (talk) 15:22, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hey Erika,

It's great that you chose to focus on on specific Facebook group for your topic. I am still a bit confused about the purpose of the group and the demographics of its members. Who are the members? What do they gain from membership? How many members are active participants that make substansive contributions versus inactive members? Once your audience understands more about the group itself, they will relate to this example and be more invested in your topic. Another suggestion I have is to focus on the effects of the moderators on the content of the group (instead of cyber security for example). You mention culture differences coming in to play and affecting content. Can you explain that further? Batjarks (talk) 18:53, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Erica,

I think you did a wonderful job, it is certainly a very interesting topic, my self I am doing research about facebook for my topic, however I had a little bit of trouble flowing with the issue presented as the problem, maybe if you can include examples to illustrate the paper could flow better, I think the basic idea is the way how facebook handles privacy matters for its benefit vs the benefit of the user, you could go on explaining about htis with examples and your paper will be even greater.

Edwin (20:09, 9 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Hi Erika,

This is a very interesting topic. Within your prospectus, you made a statement alluding to the deleting of posts due to cultural divide rather than lack of adhering to community guidelines. I think would be a great area to explore further. Why do moderators remove such post that are not against community guidelines and how does this impact community contributions and censorship?

Tasha Tasha (talk) 11:16, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Erika,

This is a very interesting topic; I like the fact that you started making comparisons between the concepts we learned in class and some aspects of this marketing group.

Are you a member of this group by any chance?

It’ll be interesting to learn how people would enforce the no stealing rule. Has there been any occasions where people learned that their idea has been stolen and they complained to the page moderators?

Rpeisch (talk) 13:43, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

• Emily MacIntyre (EmiMac)

• Prospectus title: A Case Study on the Unintended Legal Consequences and Chilling Effects of YouTube’s Content ID Sweep on its Video Game Commentator Community

• Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Emily_MacIntyre_Assignment_2.pdf

EmiMac (talk) 09:41, 2 March 2015 (EST)

---

I love any studies that have to do with Google, and especially YouTube because of the far reaching implications any sort of action in this area causes. Google is well know in my circles for causing wide-spread panic at the flick of an algorithm update switch, so finding out the exact causes of the copyright sweep would be fascinating reading.

The biggest area of concern here, for many of the people that had their videos taken down, was that it affected a lot of livelihoods. Even though users agree to YouTube's terms of services, I wonder what would have happened had any of them taken Google to court for affecting their ability to support their families? Whilst many users do it for secondary income, some do use it as a primary means of income.

Looking through the lens of our class studies would really help cement many of the discussions we've been having about freedom of speech and copyright protections.

Looking forward to reading your final paper!

ErikaLRich (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Emily, This is a great area, you could find some ideas by examining how users can damage or alter someone else's work and privacy issues, I think that you should explain the law of the particular area, and explain how it applies to the group your are presenting, explain to a specific targeted audience, like tennagers, or famous people, etc, and use qualitative and quantitative data to draw conclusions, and inferences, this could help get the point across that you choose. Great work.

Edwin (20:13, 9 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Emily,

Great job on your prospectus! It is very well organized, and your citations sources are well researched. I found your research really enticing because I had never heard of this sweep, and I consider myself an avid youtube visitor. I think you are on to a great research project. Although the topic is remarkably fascinating, I wonder if investigating and juxtaposing the different types of monitoring will be too large or too abstract for the limit of the project. I also read up on the PewDiePie character cited, and I think it is really fascinating to see that he has 35 mil subscribers, yet chose to turn off his commenting feature because of how volatile he claimed the space was becoming. His specific youtube channel then does not have a community to investigate. But it would be interesting to examine someone or a specific youtube channel that has a similar following as the case study to better help zone in on collecting and investigating data. Thank you for this topic, I am currently reading more about the youtube actions in 2008 and 2013 because I had little to no prior knowledge of both events.

Good luck on your project!

Mhoching (talk) 00:09, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

RE: Mhoching,

Thank you for your comment. I very much like your prospectus topic as well as you can see from my comments below. With regards to my final project, I thought I should reiterate and clarify that my community is the YouTube contributors that concentrate on making Let’s Plays and video game reviews. While it is helpful to find a video with an active comment section, where other users further explain how the ID sweep influences their output choices, in the case of PewDiePie, his decision to turn off his comment section does in part illustrate how YouTube has rapidly evolved. Since Google began catering to commercial enterprises over the original volunteer contributors, some of the volunteer contributors have become increasingly more frustrated and they exhibit their frustration in a variety of ways.

Thanks Again,

Emily

EmiMac (talk) 09:37, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

• MattK

• Home of the Mallet of Loving Correction: John Scalzi's Blog, "Whatever"

• http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:MattK_Assignment2.docx

MattK (talk) 22:01, 2 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Matt,

I am particularly interested in your topic because I believe it is a very small example of what the internet could become or arguably is becoming in regards to free speech. I am very intrigued by the notion of "knowledge is power". What I mean relative to your project is that I believe that those who can control what "knowledge" people receive therefore posses great power. In your case, Scalzi's blog is equipped with a comment section where total control is given to Scalzi on what to allow others to see. By censoring whatever Scalzi sees as "offensive" he is limiting a voice, whether good or bad, and therefore limiting knowledge. I would argue that there's no question that the term knowledge here is used very loosely and there are obvious comments on these sorts of forums which provide no overall good at all, but more importantly the question I think of is how dangerous it would be for one person to posses this sort of "editorial power" to simply delete anything they see unfit. What would happen if other sites also used this sort of policy where whatever is subjectively deemed unworthy of being a comment was deleted? Are there infact other online sites and forums that take this approach? What implications does this approach have for the audience of the site? Does it discourage participation as a sort of chilling effect? It is a scary world to imagine where one party possess the power of what information to provide and what to censor. In this specific case what if the comments are simply against Scalzi and are a disagreement with what he writes? What is to stop him from simply deleting something. I'm curious to know what sort of checks and balances or accountability Scarzi's editorial powers has. I think your subject bears the question of where to draw the line between free speech and productive censorship, an enormously tricky and potentially dangerous distinction.

These are just a few thoughts I had, in any case best of luck it's a great topic.

Thanks, Ryan Hurley Rhurls (talk) 18:55, 8 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Matt – what a fascinating topic! I have never visited John Scalzi’s blog before, but after reading your prospectus, I immediately went to it and started digging into the posts and comments. I think it will be a great microcosm to explore the effects of censorship from a private party, as well as the effects of a very specific set of content rules. This may be too time consuming, but it would be really cool if you could catch some of the offensive comments before they get deleted, so that you can see specific examples of the types of comments John Scalzi will not tolerate. Is he moderating effectively according to the standards he has defined? Are there any posts that are “on the line” that you might have left up?

This could also be a good opportunity to delve into the ideas of Susan Benesch that we read this past week. For example, do you notice any opportunities where counter speech might be more effective than censorship? Once a post is censored, do any users retaliate in a way that suggests they haven’t learned their lesson? Do any users engage with offensive posts before they get taken down?

Looking forward to seeing where your research leads – good luck!

Beccalew (talk) 06:42, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

HI Matt!

I can really relate to your topic for several reasons. I read Scalzi’s Red Shirts, and I absolutely loved it. His “voice” is phenomenal. I also read a long time blog (though not quite as long as his) from Patrick Rothfuss, a fellow fantasy writer who has mentioned Scalzi in several posts, and I get the general vibe your paper is going for. My topic is on the regulations of the comment threads on Youtube, so we’re both looking at editing comments essentially, and that boils down to a lot of the same basic questions on freedom of expression and knowledge squared against concerns for public decency. The difference is between that of a democracy and a dictatorship, because Scalzi can freely let loose virtual lightening bolts that leave trolling comments in a pile of metaphorical ash. I really think looking at what forces check Scalzi is interesting, since there are no real tangible forces because its his personal blog. The intangibles like respect for freedom of expression and differences of opinion come into play and fun to think about. I would maybe propose that you also think about how his comment sections would look like life if he didn't have direction control. The differences in quality and what is lost weighed against what is gained might be a fun tangent to add some depth for the reader. If you want an extra pair of eyes to run it by once you have a draft, just reach out and let me know! wesleyverge@g.harvard.edu

Wesley

WesleyVerge (talk) 14:08, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

Edwin Duque (Edwinduque)

Prospectus Title:The copyright, privacy and organization challenges that online communities such as Facebook and The Jury Deliberation in the cyber space are faced with

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Edwinduque_Assignment_2.doc

(Edwinduque (talk) 22:10, 2 March 2015 (EST))

---

Hi Edwin,

I like the way you structured your idea. I think that the copyright issue is very interesting and it is worthed spending some more time on it. Exploring the nature of a Facebook post – whether it could be consider as an “idea”, in the Copyright Act specifically states that In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, regardless of the form in which it is described. Or it could be considered as an “original works of authorship” fixed by the author in a tangible way, in which case it would be covered by copyrights. The issue of re-posting someone else’s post with commercial purposes could be interesting to mention as well. It is just an idea, but saying some words about the case with the famous Facebook post “In response to the new Facebook guidelines…. “ might be interesting too. I think that you could also easily link your work to the “right to be forgotten” issues we discussed in class.

Here are some links you might find useful. Good luck!

http://www.nyccounsel.com/business-blogs-websites/who-owns-photos-and-videos-posted-on-facebook-or-twitter/ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-social-networking/

(Gia (talk) 20:54, 8 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Hi Edwin,

I am very interested in your topic; but unlike Gia, I am concerned with the structure. As currently presented, your prospectus is using two distinctly different communities to research information sharing, which makes it feel a bit disjointed. While your background research will be consistent, the exploration of Facebook and Jury X will present some distinct copyright and privacy issues. This is further supported by the differences of your 'Issue' questions for each community. I think once you delve into the topic further, there will be enough information and case studies to focus on one community. Or you can explore issues that are consistent in both communities, which will allow for continuity in your project.

Tasha Tasha (talk) 11:41, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Edwin,

This seems like a very interesting topic but I worry that it may be a little broad. For example, "whether a Facebook member can infringe copyright laws by sharing someone else's ideas" could mean so many different things depending on the information being shared. Copyright laws are quite diverse from subject to subject so it might be better to pick a particular copyright issue. Another example that may be a little broad is "whether facebook advertising actions are an invasion of privacy." I would maybe choose a few types of actions instead of trying to tackle a lot of them. I understand that because this is a prospectus you probably were planning on doing these kinds of things once you actually begin writing, but I thought I would just point it out. I like your thought processes a lot and it seems like it has a lot of great potential!

(Amchugh (talk) 15:13, 10 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Name: Michelle Byrne (Chelly.Byrne)

Prospectus title: Balancing privacy for victims of sexual crimes with opportunity for support in online forum AfterSilence.org

Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:ChellyByrne_Assignment2.pdf

chelly byrne (talk) 07:54, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hello Michelle,

You've chosen a challenging topic to write about, not just in the realm of privacy, but in subject matter.

Online communities have long been the support system for many an introvert over the years. Their importance is often overshadowed by those that think users put too much of their lives on the Internet, opening themselves up to possible crimes, bullying, and other potential misdeeds.

Sexual abuse of any type is so hard to talk about in person, that being able to hide behind a screen and share feelings and experiences without fear of being "found" is a life preserver for victims. Unfortunately, where users unknowingly reveal their identities is often a case of either not knowing how to use a forum or simply naivete.

Many people that find themselves in a community like this may be online for the very first time, trying to figure out how to deal with a traumatizing event and are often not exactly in the right frame of mind.

Of course there are no controls to figure out a users experience, so it up to the moderators to police for them, protect them from harm, and at the same time not trample on how they wish to be "heard and seen" in the support forum. It's a very fine line to tread and not for the weak of heart.

Good luck in your research and look forward to reading the results.

ErikaLRich (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Michelle,

You have chosen a terrifically nuanced community. Indeed, the word “balance” and the question of HOW such a community can possibly approach this word is bound to yield more data and conclusions than the page ljmits of our final project – which is only testimony to the strength of your community research choice. I believe yours is the most psychologically-based prospectus that I have read thus far.

By “psychologically-based,” I mean that I sense that you will be making some conclusions about the specialized mindsets and individuals who are drawn to this community; a community that paradoxically, and in waves, seem to wish for both anonymity and at the same time, a very specific and difficult kind of attention. Anonymous attention. A community that has created a safe haven and yet, has some very troubling cracks, as you point out.

Questions: Are these cracks mostly user generated? As in, the example you found of the poster who revealed configurable data revealing her identity. If they are mostly user-generated, how prevalent of an instance is this? Of the active users who reveal private information, what instances are accidental or ignorant (as in, thinking they’ll be anonymous by revealing age, town, etc) as opposed to intentional?

Is there some kind of warning or clause in the user agreement that attempts to address this issue of accidentally revealing private information or even purposefully revealing it?

If the user agreement and the rules and guidelines for AfterSilence.org do address this issue and users still post personal information, what are the pros and cons of simply warning users about the risks and then letting users do as they please vs. taking pro-active measures?

If there were pro-active measures for a site host like this to take, what would they be? Message board community reminders? Moderators who redact info? Self-regulation and regulation amongst members? What does regulation in this kind of community actually look like and is it sustainable in its current form?

Many more questions and considerations to make. Good topic choice, succinctly proposed. I wish you all the best in this project and I look forward to reading the final project.

Best, Chanel Rion

Chanel Rion (talk) 11:31, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Michelle,

Good choice in topic. You’ve identified an online community that has a serious need of privacy but also a potentially revitalizing need for contact with others who have had similar experiences. You have clearly already done some good research on how the website operates. Perhaps a next step that could add another layer would be to see what (if any) legal protections the website needs to comply with. Do crime victims get special protection, or if they surrender their information, is it their own fault? Good luck! MattK (talk) 23:34, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Michelle – I’m really interested in this topic and curious to hear where your research leads. I think you have developed a really great framework for researching the challenges the community faces. I’m curious whether AfterSilence itself has explicit privacy policies, and if so, what they outline? Also, does the site do any moderating of posts that perhaps reveal “too much” information? On the other hand, I’m curious whether there are any users who don’t have the expectation of privacy, and who willingly share their identity/personal information? If so, how does that affect the dynamic on the site? Based on our readings and discussion about the “right to be forgotten,” it might also be worth doing some Google searches to see what makes certain posts from the site crop up in results. I would be curious to see how Google’s algorithm handles these searches, and whether it is actually publicizing user information beyond what the women on the site might be comfortable with. Looking forward to seeing your continued work on this!

Beccalew (talk) 06:52, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Chanel Rion (ChanelRion)

Prospectus Title: We the Judges: "Sitejabber", "Yelp", and Communities of User-Generated Business Reviews.

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Assignment2_Prospectus_Rion.docx

Chanel Rion (talk) 11:21, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Chanel,

The subject of customer generated reviews is certainly huge on the internet. It is beneficial for consumers to get an opinion of a product or restaurant from other people over just what the advertising says. But as you point out, there is a lot of opportunity for libel or slander – especially people just having an ax to grind. It would be interesting to see how Yelp or Sitejabber are being responsible and making an effort to regulate content and protect places being reviewed from harassing content. I like how your approach includes researching any legal cases brought against them; it would be interesting to see if any of them prevail. Also, how do they actually calculate the ratings? Is it an average of overall ratings? Or could bad reviews be hidden away if there become lots of positive reviews? Are businesses sandbagging to increase their ratings?

Overall, this is a great community to look into and I wish you success!

Michelle aka (Chelly) chelly byrne (talk) 15:43, 7 March 2015 (EST)

---

RE: Michelle

Hi Michelle,

Thank you for your comments and feedback. I too, am especially interested in the legal angles to this community and I am glad to know I'm not the only one. I will certainly be watching and reviewing and seeking the answers to these questions and also to your specific concerns. All intensely pertinent to how businesses and communities are going to manage tensions with each other -- tensions that have always been here, but are now revolutionized in simply the sheer and complete access that the Internet provides to all of us.

Looking forward to starting this seek and find. Thank you for highlighting questions and focuses, they should prove helpful for such a broad category.

Best,

Chanel

Chanel Rion (talk) 16:49, 8 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Chanel,

This is an awesome topic! I am many people utilize such sites when looking for a restaurant or service. Approximately a year ago, I spoke with someone who worked at Yelp and asked many of the questions you are researching. One area that would be interesting for you to explore is user rating. There are users who have premium status; therefore, they have a higher level of 'credibility' with there reviews. It would be interesting to know if there is a vetting system for high level contributors. Additionally, there are quite a few FTC complaints and lawsuits in regards to Yelp and other feedback review systems. Here is a current case that may assist in your research: http://www.scribd.com/doc/244906228/Kimzey-v-Yelp-Inc-Opening-Brief#scribd Tasha (talk) 11:57, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Chanel- great choice in topic! Several months back, I read an article on a restaurant manager asking his customers to provide negative feedback for an experiement in resarching and using YELP. I recommend you find some information on that and work into your paper-- it may be interesting to see what that outcome was in terms of customers and how YELP played into the overall aspect of the restaurant. -Caroline Cbore001 (talk) 12:03, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

Name: Becca Lewis (beccalew)

Prospectus Title: /r/TwoXChromosomes and /r/feminism: The challenges of promoting feminism on Reddit while upholding the values of privacy and free speech

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Final_Project_Prospectus_Becca_Lewis.docx

Beccalew (talk) 13:15, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Chanel,

I like your chosen subject matter. This definitely is a growing concern as a fake bad review on a site like Yelp can severely hurt businesses, especially small family owned business. Many of these businesses are what people aspire to as part of their American dream and now there is a lot more power in each users hands as to whether they will be successful or not. I believe an area that might be interesting to explore is the power that the business owners have to comment back or control their own reviews. (I say this out of personal experience where I’ve left a negative review about a company and had the owner respond claiming my statements about the quality of service were a lie.) I’ve also seen instances of restaurant names being posted online due to their anti-LGBT stances and having swarms of people who have never been customers at the establishments giving them negative reviews. A similar but more nationally recognized story was with Amy’s Baking Company featured on Kitchen Nightmares. I’m not sure how Yelp responded to those reviews, but it would be interesting to explore those past cases.

Best of luck! Samaei1 (talk) 14:43, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Becca! I absolutely love the theme of your project, it is an exceptional live issue since feminism has been discussed much more this past year than it has been for many years. Therefore, it´s really important to examine the forums in which people have the opportunity to discuss the subject. Great!

I also found it cool that you are thinking about recording a podcast for the project. If you do so, you might consider including an interview with someone active in the specific forums, a professor in gender studies or perhaps two people with different views on the issue?

I have a question about the subreddits you talked about though. You wrote about a ”safe space” for women. Are those subreddits only for women or are they open for anyone who want to discuss feminism and gender roles? If it is a women-only forum, you might also discuss the consequences on that. If not, maybe that has consequences as well. Maybe you should discuss self censorship in the feminism subreddits as well (which is very interesting since Reddit-as you said-values free speech above almost all else)?

Good luck! /Josefin

JosefinS (talk) 10:39, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hello Becca,

Your avenue of research should prove quite illuminating for creating feminist spaces, in online fora dominated by men. Interestingly, your topic dovetails with this weeks readings, concerning hate speech and other charged language, which is used far to readily in online fora. It would be interesting to see if the users in the two subreddits. /r/TwoXChromosomes and /r/Feminism, have tried using counterspeech, when confronted with offensive or antagonising posts. Mind, if the moderator of r/Feminism is in fact trying to subvert this positive feminist space, would that violate any of Reddit's policies? If not, are there any policies governing the role of moderator?

Good luck!

AlexanderH (talk) 19:44, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Becca,

I echo what the others have said: I like the timing and the specificity of the topic. There are certainly a lot of feminist voices on the Internet, but I don’t hear them coming from Reddit too often. I’m eager to hear your final presentation!

This isn’t so much a suggestion as it is a question I don’t know the answer to: are the feminists in those subreddits the community, or does the community include all folks who post? The answer to that question might make your final analysis a little harder to pin down. MattK (talk) 23:34, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Becca,

LOVE your interesting perspective - did not know this was happening on reddit. The one thing that concerned me in your prospectus was phraseology such as "the female experience" or the "feminist community." I think these terms may be a little broad and it might make sense to outline in your paper more of the kinds of communities these are (which I'm sure you will). A straight, white feminist online space may be policed less and in different ways than say a queer feminist space or any other kinds of spaces. Just something to consider!

(Amchugh (talk) 15:29, 10 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Name: Gary Brown (Gary Brown)

Prospectus Title: The Effects of Site Controls on Community Objectives: communityfunded.com

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Gary_Brown_Assignment2.docx

Gary Brown (talk) 13:18, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Comments on Gary's Prospectus:

Gary,

Great topic! I hope to be going out to for crowdfunding by the end of the May. So I will follow your Wiki with interest. (In your proposal you link to crowdfunded. I think you meant community funded. You may want to look at that.)

You mentioned the stated purpose of Communityfunded. But you did not mention their reason for existing. In other words, what started crowdfunding and why would individuals seek funds for their projects from the public and not other traditional sources. Why are people like me willing to go online (to communityfunded) to ask for money, as opposed to going to another site or pitching a Venture Capitalist or a bank? Why would people fund a project on line versus invest in the stock market or Bank CDs?

I think that the answer to those questions goes to the heart of crowdfunding. It also is germane to the “troublesome obstacles” you refer to in your prospectus.

When you mention failed projects, I would suggest that not all failures are the same. I might be willing to invest money in a project I consider socially redeeming even if I thought it had very little chance of success. Where as, if I were investing in some Harvard wiz-kids that profess to have the next Facebook, I might have very different feelings if they went belly up. So you may want to include categories of projects, or claims/expectations in your discussions. As well as any risk factor ratings.

You also mentioned building and keeping trust of supporters. One of the areas that interests me is the ways that Fundraisers generate funding support. Do they rely solely on the site? In other words, is there a pool of would be investors just waiting for the right idea to come around so they can invest. Or is a fundraiser expected to go outside the community and raise interest and drive that interest back to the site? How does that impact the “trust” factor? If I am a one-time fundraiser does it matter all that much what people think about me after I’ve got my money?

You discuss how you will break down funded projects, etc. Is there a way to figure out what various fundraiser did to get funded? Marketing may prove to be more of a factor than the project or its worthiness.

It would certainly be worthwhile to compare and contrast crowdfunding before and after changes in regs that made it easier for the public to invest. And how post reg trends may lead to new regs/controls.

I look forward to reading your paper.

Best,

RMarkow (talk) 20:45, 4 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hey Gary, this is a fun topic. I have a few comments/questions for you to think about.

First, does CF vet any of the projects at the moment? If so, how and do you agree with it? Also consider that it may be more efficient to put all the projects out there and leave it to the community to “vet” them by either funding them or not. Perhaps the projects attracting the most dollars could float to the top of the page, or there could be different sorting filters (i.e. project categories (tech, games, etc.), most viewed, almost at goal, new, etc.). Maybe there could be a user upvote/down vote model akin to Reddit.com.

Also, are there stipulations on fund seekers? For example, if they set a dollar goal and a deadline, they get all or nothing? Or if it’s a startup company seeking money, funders get a % of the profits? Not sure if I’m thinking of kickstarter.com’s model but that could be an interesting comparison.

And what do you think about projects’ success rates? Does CF need to ensure a high success rate? Or is there a value in failed projects? I find that when people donate money they want to leave little or no room for experimentation or failure (i.e. all non-profits) even though we know that experimentation is key to stumbling on progress.

As far as actual dollars raised, would fund seekers be better off soliciting corporate donations or venture capital funding? And are donations to websites like these tax deductible? I’m not sure.

Kelly.wilson (talk) 14:32, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Meagan HoChing (mhoching)

Title: Online Gaming Harassment: All fun and games?

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Mhoching_Assignment2.docx

Mhoching (talk) 13:50, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Meagan,

Every aspect of your prospectus is incredibly interesting to me. I am especially intrigued by how well you have matched up the readings to your topic.

After I read your section on Norms I thought about how you point out that “the gaming system is very competitive” and it made me wonder, if Valve placed more restrictions to prevent bullying could it potentially take some of the pleasure of competition out of the mix. If so, then would some users leave the game because they like the hostile environment, which may be why they chose to play in it in the first place. Keeping this line of thought in mind, perhaps you could find another similar community that has more strict modes of control in place to observe the differences between them.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your prospectus and I look forward to seeing your finished product.

Best, Emily

EmiMac (talk) 09:25, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Meagan!

What an interesting and relevant subject!

I think that it was a very good idea of you to use the Dot Model with the components ”Market”, ”Architecture”, ”Norms” and ”Law”, it makes everything much more clear. I agree with Emily that it would be a good idea to compare DOTA 2 with another game, preferably from another website than STEAM and with another system of regulation. I would find it really interesting to see the result of a such a study and if norms, the language, the members of the site, etc. differ between the two games.

I´m looking forward to see the result! Good luck!

/Josefin

JosefinS (talk) 10:16, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Meagan!

I think this is a very fascinating topic and one I too almost pursued. I am a bit of a gamer myself and although I don't play DOTA, I do regularly play many different sports games which I have found to have similar issues of harassment and "bullying". I hadn't heard of the STEAM website you're focusing on until I read your assignment, but for anyone who has read really a comment section/forum anywhere, one second you're talking about a video game, the next you have gone down a path of hate and overall disgust of anyone different minded not to mention if it is a competitive game which stirrs up some hostile emotions toward an adversary. I find this particularly interesting when it comes to video games because many people who don't play video games believe that "it's just a game" but on the contrary for many gamers, one can find their self emotionally invested into a game you are taking part in. You feel this overwhelming sense of dedication to it and attachment to what happens in it where you can essentially lose yourself in the game. It is because of this hardwired competitive and primitive feeling and this element of motivation that I believe is so deeply rooted in many gamers that it would be near impossible to ever completely outlaw the harassment or trash talk because it will never stop. However perhaps there is some sort of way to outlaw the harassment that crosses a line by creating real consequence while still allowing some competitive jabbing but that I will be curious to see from your project. I will be also curious to hear what your research finds about the website in particular, I would venture to guess that it is probably similar for communities like the PSN and xboxlive.

I might suggest on top of all this to take a look at games which do not have a competitive nature with other users. This may be difficult to find but I'd be curious to see whether it is harassment you find on forums with these sort of games or rather a cooperative dialogue intended to help one another.

Good Luck! - Ryan Hurley

Rhurls (talk) 16:26, 8 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Meagan,

That's a very interesting subject, congrats! You divided the topic to analyze it in a very good manner. I agree with Emily and Josefin on that it would be great if you included a game from another website (but the same game), in order to compare their mechanisms of harassment/bullying control and the index of harassment of each website, so you'll be able to evaluate the mechanisms.

Good work!

njalbut (talk) 18:28, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Caroline B

Title: The Study of Privacy, Accuracy & Order on InsideNova Website and Moving ‘Little Sites’ Up

Link: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:1_Caroline_B.docx

Cbore001 (talk) 14:45, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Caroline, Something to for your paper is the current statistics on accessing news in the United States (online newspaper versus hard copy newspaper for example), and the devices used to access online news (iphone, android, ipad, laptop, desktop computer, etc). IBISWorld and Mintel might offer up to date statistics on news distribution/access. Google analytics offers insight on specific website views. Perhaps take a look at what the demographics of the visitors of this site are and try to find out why this site attracts these viewers. Comparing this site to other more popular news sites (like CNN as you mentioned) is a great idea. Currently, I think your proposal covers too wide a range of topics, so maybe consider focusing on just a few that you mentioned. (For example maybe narrow it to the three subjects max: privacy, journalists’ / contributors’ / editors’ / monitors’ control of content, the ethical policy of the site). If privacy is a big concern to you, I think you could focus your entire paper around it. Batjarks (talk) 19:19, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hello Caroline,

Regional news site are an important part of the information ecosystem, for communities that are often not represented on larger news sites. The question of privacy is an interesting one, especially as users must register to post a comment on InsideNova. As a news organization, and a business, do advertisers get access to any user information? On the social media front, it looks like there is Facebook and Twitter integration with the site, which could raise privacy issues. This sounds like a good start, as Brooke mentioned, and will be interesting to see where your research takes you.

Good luck!

AlexanderH (talk) 12:50, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

I like the fact that you chose a small, local website to focus on. I wonder if the company behind website also publishes the number of hits that the site gets, and if it’s comparable to the 200,000 households reached by their newspapers.

I’m interested in seeing your conclusion as to where the ‘line of privacy’ should be drawn in terms of disclosing personal information when contributing to the site. People have been talking about anonymity of pseudonyms vs. using real names and own up to whatever they’re posting, especially when commenting on anything. Do you happen to know if most people on that site prefer their real name or pseudonym when they post anything?

Rpeisch (talk) 13:35, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Jan.Yburan

Prospectus title: Reddit.com/r/IAmA its Controls on Privacy and Content

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Jan.Yburan.Assignment2.docx

---

Hi Jan,

This is a really interesting community to build your case study around. Prior to today I have only been on the site a few times to look at subreddits that relate to topics that I am interested in, and since I am not a member I have not considered how the site protects the user’s privacy.

Today I decided to look at the IAmA subreddit to get a better handle of the scope of your project. Consequently, I came across and interesting and fairly benign thread started by an employee of a movie theater and it brought to mind, how does the site handle issues of privacy, libel or defamation against a company or a consumer when an employee engages in what appears at first glance as an anonymous tell all blog that highlights how he/she has witnessed vulgar and perhaps even criminal activity.

Considering your topic and direction you want to take, I think you might want to blend together aspects of the readings from our classes on privacy with the readings for next week’s class on free expression, information, and unwanted speech.

I am looking forward to seeing your completed final project. I am sure it will be very informative.

Best,

Emily

P.S. (Here is the link to the AMA I referenced: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2xz6nb/iama_movie_theater_employee_and_ive_seen_the/)

EmiMac (talk) 13:04, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hey Jan – cool topic. I’ve always wondered whether/how Reddit.com confirms the identities of the folks who volunteer to do AMAs. Has there ever been a case in which someone impersonated a famous person in an ama? Perhaps caused damage to their reputation? If so how was that handled? If not, what prevents people from logging on and doing a Monica Lewinsky AMA, for example? Reddit norms?

It would be interesting to see how the anonymity of the questioners affects the tone and seriousness of their questions. It’s easier to be snarky when you’re not face to face with a person and when they don’t even they don’t know who you are. In that sense questioners can’t be help accountable for their actions. Whether or not they keep interviews professional or not.

What makes people go to r/IAmA to be interviewed? Is it that they do something interesting but not necessarily newsworthy? Or is this medium becoming competitive with real interviewers? Perhaps it has a more “grassrootsy” feel and appeals to a younger generation? Is this like citizen journalism taken to the next level? Group-citizen journalism? Does this help/hinder our media landscape? Very interesting topic!

Kelly.wilson (talk) 14:55, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Eric Yuk Lun Kwong (Caelum)

Prospectus title: The vulnerable voting structure of Digg.com and the gradual collapse of its popularity and voting legitimacy

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Caelum_Assignment2.pdf

Caelum (talk) 15:11, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hello Eric,

An excellent topic! One I wish I had thought of.

As a long time member of Digg, I am interested to read where your study goes.

From a personal perspective, I used Digg (way back) as a resource to promote websites, and help create links and "search engine juice" in order to get more favorable Google rankings for a large network of sites that I ran. Digg was a monster in its heyday, but its collapse seemed inevitable.

The voting system could indeed be gamed, and "voters" could be bought for pennies, causing massive upheavals across the board for certain articles and categories. This of course angered long time users that took their "job" of voting articles up or down very seriously.

As a resource, you may find this Wired article useful "I Bought Votes on Digg": http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/people/news/2007/03/72832?currentPage=all

This quote could help to dig further (no pun intended):

From: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/32417-niche-marketing-buy-digg-votes.html

"As I understand it, to rise up the rankings it's not necessarily the amount of votes but the quality of the people voting. (apparently diggs algorithm bases this on things such as the length of time a user has been on digg, how often they digg, the quality of the posts they dig etc). "

Good luck and look forward to reading the final paper!

ErikaLRich (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Eric,

Excellent topic. One that possesses, at once, broad-scale relevance and unusual particularities.

Exploring the reasons for Digg’s failure as a site and as a community, I’m drawn to the question regarding the members themselves.

It would be interesting to compare, if applicable, the kinds of users who are drawn to a voting-type participatory community vs. a community that actually interacts via content and contributions. If clear distinctions can be made here, to then find examples of successful communities that are voter-based and to pinpoint key policies or elements that differentiate sustainable models of voter-based communities compared to content-based contribution communities.

Perhaps it is fundamentally an issue of investment; when users and the outside world view a product as having or requiring minimal investment (as in, saying, or rather, clicking “yes” or “no” to something – voting to “dig” or “bury” a story). Are voting based sites destined to suffer from questions of legitimacy by virtue of being online and being so subjective?

That you will be making parallels to Wikipedia’s platform seems to be a good approach here. Wisely done. Thank you also, for your commentaries – I appreciate the thoroughness in which you approach these topics.

Best of luck!

Chanel Rion

Chanel Rion (talk) 11:57, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Alex Samaei (Samaei1)

Prospectus title: The Framework of Projects and Backers on Kickstarter

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Samaei1_Assignment2.pdf

Samaei1 (talk) 15:37, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Alex!

I'm so happy you picked this website because I've donated to various projects on this website, but never took into account the structure of the website and complications due to misappropriating of funding. I find it hard to try to quantify what is appropriate to fundraise, because the topic is subjective. Of course I don't think it would be appropriate to fundraise to support hate speech (if that's what someone is fundraising for), yet I don't find it appropriate to fundraise for movies about starving children, when that money can go to feeding starving children. I hope I'm communicating the subjectiveness of trying to find what would be considered appropriate to raise money for and how it varies from person to person.

But speaking in regards to the Lessig's Dot Model I think the website can be broken down into different sections to address some of the issues you raise. For example, how does the structure of kickstarter promote accountability on the artist/person asking for money? On the donation page for example, a vast amount of information about the artist is available, as well as avenues in which you can contact the fundraiser. So if kickstarter has provided this as a requirement for people to submit or provide when asking to be funded, is it then up to the donor to hold that person accountable? I have the tools on that page to ask the fundraiser for that specific information and continue to follow up on that information. I think once you start looking at specific/deliberate aspects of kickstarter, it will start to inform or control behavior.

I hope this helps! Look forward to reading the final project; happy researching and writing!

Mhoching (talk) 00:35, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Alex,

I’m interested that you have chosen a community that, you imply, is being targeted not for its failures, but for its successes. A wildfire that is often so much more visible on the Internet than in any other form in history. Speed, access, and instant publicity -- make "success" in society ever more visible, open to targeting, and prone to hijacking. Indeed. It is a great topic for research in this course in particular.

One aspect that could be revelatory is to seek out the kinds of legal cases that have been brought against kickstarter and what litigation the site has to deal with and what kinds of litigation that users potentially enter into.

There’s also a question about user legitimacy. How easy is it for some startup organization to simply use this community and its platform as an elaborate marketing plan? Can a company, for instance, viel itself to be a small time kickstarter that can feed itself funding and manufacture the appearance of democratic success? It would be especially useful to identify who the moderators are and to what extent they exercise control or regulation if any. Does Kickstarter have even the skeleton of some kind of verification system or is the verification over the legitimacy of a proposal entirely user generated? Is this sustainable or are there signs of trouble ahead? What would be a disastrous scenario for this community? To these questions, I think that many clues may be found in the litigation and whatever bad publicity the community has had encounter.

Great topic, culturally relevant community. Thank you for the topic and best of luck for the final.

Best,

Chanel Rion

Chanel Rion (talk) 12:31, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Dear Alex,

From your opening paragraph, I am wondering if you plan to focus on Kickstarter itself, one or more of the projects seeking support through Kickstarter, or the Reddit.com community. Each would seem to present a different community/sub-community based on the same general subject. Coverying all three could be a little broad for this size project.

I think the issues you present are one of the more interesting subject areas of crowdfunding sites – who is the gatekeeper and how are projects screened? The authority to control and manner of control by the site owner, community, or government touches on many of our subject areas. It should be fertile ground for your project. I would plan carefully whether to go deeply into limited subject matter, or cover several subjects more broadly in the time and space you have. Either way, you have a site that should meet fit your plan.

I wish you success, and I look forward to reading your work.

Gary Brown (talk) 19:23, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Gia

Prospectus title: Chivalry online

Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Gia_Assignment2.docx (Gia (talk) 15:46, 3 March 2015 (EST))

---

Hi Gia, this is a great topic, I think the importance of this group is very high, it serves greatly to the public to prevent scams, and I wondered if the public service it provides weights in the privacy issue when it comes to the issue of finding out scams and finding information, where are the boundaries, great topic, maybe you can illustrate your topic with examples and explain how the law applies to those various kinds, great work!!!>

Edwin (Edwinduque (talk) 20:25, 9 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Hi Gia!

I think your concept is so interesting! Your prospectus looks pretty tight and covers all the necessary bases. My only advice is to stay focused as you elaborate on all of the interesting questions and points you raise. There are so many aspects and viewpoints you can focus on that it should be easy to find a compelling angle and focus in on it. You have enough material here to fill 20+ pages, but if you can keep it concise and “trimmed of fat”, I think you’ll have a very interesting, sharp essay. Also, with this much info, I find it helpful to keep in mind the shape of an upside down triangle, Start with all of necessary context and background info, and get more focused until the essence of what you’re saying is eventually expressed in a focused sentence or two. It’s a great way to guide the reader’s thought process to be on the same level as you by the time to you get to your claims. If you want an extra pair of eyes to run it by once you have a draft, just reach out and let me know! wesleyverge@g.harvard.edu

- Wesley

WesleyVerge (talk) 14:06, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Gia,

This topic is definitely flushing out the seedier side of the internet! I have never heard of this site 419eater, but we all know the dangers of scammers and how they use the internet. How do they find their victims? Some scams are so realistic as to mention names of loved ones in danger and demand money be expedited. The scam baiters you’re talking about here must be trolling similar sites and circles to identify culprits they need want to go after. But in doing so, are they just as much at fault as the original scammers? Is there any regulation of the members? I can definitely see an ethical dilemma, as you point out, of some possibly unscrupulous members. And your question of whether they have extended their existence outside the online world is a very interesting consideration.

You a have a lot of good sources listed regarding scams (white collar crime and Ponzi schemes too!). Good luck, this is an intriguing subject!

Michelle

chelly byrne (talk) 15:57, 7 March 2015 (EST)

---

Re: Michelle

Thanks for the comments, Michelle. I definitely intend to explore the subject from both sides, because there could be really two, maybe even more , points of view. Regarding the legal regulation, there is a lot to be said – interned jurisdiction. The self-regulation of the web community which is evolving with the time is also a nice starting point. Thank again for the ideas and good luck to you too with your work!

(Gia (talk) 20:54, 8 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Name: Mishal R. Kennedy

Prospectus title: Enforcing Guidelines Without Harming User Contributions

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Mishal_R._Kennedy_Assignment2.rtf (Mishal R. Kennedy (talk) 15:51, 3 March 2015 (EST))

---

Hi Mishal,

The subject you have chosen is very interesting and gives great opportunities for discussions and analyses. I would directly make a reference to the Lawrence Lessig, Code 2.0, which we discussed during “Paradigms for Studying the Internet’ class. You could explore the methods used by the moderators and administrators as a way of self regulation of the community. The question you asked whether these methods are causing more bad than good, is right to the point. I would suggest you explain in more details the different methods of control used my the moderators and perhaps compare them with the ones used by other communities. You could also take a look if it is explicitly listed in the Terms of Use of the website in which case what measure is taken? Is there a higher authority than the moderator to whom a sanctioned user could complain? Could such a decision “be appealed” or it is final and definitive? Is there at all a hierarchy in the administration of the website? Here are some sources which might help. Good luck!

https://www.academia.edu/3079184/COAT_Collaborative_Outgoing_Anti-Spam_Technique http://www.yildiz.edu.tr/~aktas/courses/CE-0114890/g8-p3.pdf http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kksivara/sfwr4c03/projects/4c03projects/CGLucas-Project.pdf http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2780/3296

(Gia (talk) 20:54, 8 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Name: Richard Markow

Prospectus title: The YouTube video-sharing platform & The Community of Alternative Heating Systems and Appliance Inventors

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Rich_Markow_Assignment_2_Prospectus.pdf

RMarkow (talk) 16:03, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Dear Richard,

I am most interested in how you plan to use the YouTube channel with your invention and how you will relate that effort to our project here. Do I understand that you will try to create a community within your channel, and that will be the subject community? Or, is the plan to take one of the five areas you have mentioned and focus on one or more of them? I am having a little difficulty seeing from the prospectus what your focus will be and how your invention channel will relate to the analysis.

Your third subject sounds like an especially interesting area to me: “legal liability of user generated content related to unproven claims and inventions.” From Mentos in soda, to instructions on building who knows what, who if anyone has liability for misguided attempts to imitate these videos? Is there really anything that YouTube as an intermediary could do?

Congratulations on your invention. I hope that you will be able to bring it to the market successfully.

Gary Brown (talk) 20:38, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Richard,

Congratulations for your invention and your topic is very interesting. Something that have been happening is that considering the high speed of the technology, many apps have been created to make it feasible for people to download videos from YouTube indiscriminately. YouTube has recently changed its terms and conditions to prevent apps from downloading videos to watch offline. So I would suggest you to include this issue and challenge that YouTube have been facing and how the it impacts the authors of the videos and the advertisements.

Good work!

njalbut (talk) 18:11, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name AlexanderH

Prospectus Title: Managing the Petitions of Change.org: B Corps, Social Enterprise and Transparency

Link:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:AlexanderH_Assignment_2_Prospectus.docx

AlexanderH (talk) 16:10, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hey Alexander,

Great start here. I think you do an excellent job specifically identifying the different forces that are all at work on the site—it’s a user-driven, social platform, but is a corporation and is responsible to shareholders. Transparency in its operations thus becomes vital. You have a good eye for complexity, so I think you’ll have an interesting analysis. With complexity, however, can come difficulty in precision. You have a good lay of the land, but I think you might need to grapple some with what your conclusion might look like (of course, you may just not know yet, which is fine). For example, what would successful transparency look like? Great start! MattK (talk) 23:34, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Alexander,

I believe you’ve chosen a current and useful community with Change.org. Petitions are always being posted on other communities like Facebook and Reddit. That being said it is a very complex community because it contains so many different smaller communities that may support different petitions. Seeing how (or if) Change.org manages these groups equally while hopefully remaining neutral will be interesting. I would suggest narrowing your focus down to the ‘middle-man’ who oversees regulation of what is posted if that is what you’re most interested in.

Best of luck!

Samaei1 (talk) 14:51, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hey Alexander – great topic! I didn’t realize Change.org was a B corp. Fascinating! I also didn’t realize that non-profits had to pay to put their petitions up. Isn't that interesting.

In addition to meeting a minimum threshold for support, doesn't Change.org have guiding policies on what type of petitions get published? I’ve only ever seen progressive leaning petitions but perhaps that’s because I live in my own liberal filter bubble. ;)

Why do you think a platform like this has stirred up so much activism? How much real change do you think comes from petition signing? Is this real activism or is this slacktivism? Does signing online petitions encourage more action or satisfy one’s need to feel like they’ve “done their part?” Does it even matter as long as organizations are getting the numbers they need to legitimize their purpose?

What’s the biggest success story Change.org has to offer? Biggest failure?

Also good to focus on how this site is a “community.” I believe people create profiles and you can see what categories of petitions they sign most. Do activists talk? They can post petitions to social media after signing. It would be interesting to see how people are getting trafficked to Chage.org’s petitions – is it from friends’ social media pages, organization sent emails/tweets/posts, or do people really go directly to Chage.org in search of petitions? All very interesting. Good luck!

Kelly.wilson (talk) 15:18, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Meredith Blake

Prospectus Title:Identifying Avenues of Recourse for Businesses on Yelp

Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Meredith_Blake._Assignment_2.docx Meredith (talk) 16:13, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hello Meredith!

I think this is a great topic and you have a very interesting approach. I haven’t really looked into Yelp and the lawsuit angle, but they certainly have a lot of influence on the internet. Out of curiosity, I just Googled about 10 different restaurants in this area and the results had the Yelp review either as the second or third site listed! So potential customers are seeing the Yelp rating almost before the actual websites in a couple of cases! There is little recourse for them, and as you show by the Sia example, a disgruntled customer can reach out and cause a flood of terrible reviews, from people who weren’t even customers! Caelum makes a good point in the summary at the bottom that reviews are either one end of the spectrum or the other… disgruntled customers wanting to air their displeasure or someone extremely happy who wants to rave about it.

It is good to take a targeted approach to such a large community, and looking into the recourse that businesses may have as well as existing lawsuits sounds like a good approach. If a suit is successful, what are the actual outcomes? Does Yelp take down reviews or adjust the ratings? I think people who expound on sites that give a platform are really missing the spirit of free speech. I don’t think your approach is that unpopular, not that free speech needs to be regulated, but that there should be some modicum of self-restraint and freedom to say anything is not absolutely protected.

Good luck on this, you’ve got some really good ideas!

Michelle

chelly byrne (talk) 16:14, 7 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Meredith,

I believe you’ve chosen an interesting topic and more specifically an interesting question within the Yelp community. You mentioned the negative reviews of the dry cleaners and it’s abuse of power. I have also seen cases of people posting names of anti-LGBT restaurants being posted online and those small businesses receiving thousands of negative reviews by people who have never been customers there. These offer interesting cases because while the users leaving negative reviews might feel justified in lowering the rating of the establishment in question, it is only fair to ask if this is an abuse of power on their part. What keeps us honest? I find it difficult to think that legal action could ever be taken against someone who simply shares their story about their discrimination.

A similar scenario that I have experienced was the rebuttal from a restaurant manager. Last year I left a negative review of a restaurant after receiving service and quality I felt was poor. I was surprised when I saw a following comment was posted by the restaurant manager saying that I was incorrect and simply did not “know what good food is.” This act also seemed like an abuse of power when used in this way.

I’m very interested to see what you find about legal repercussions and if there ever have been lawsuits over similar issues. Reading the terms and conditions of users and businesses would be a good starting place.

Best of luck! Samaei1 (talk) 15:03, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Wesley Verge

Prospectus Title : Scrolling into Darkness -- An investigation into the regulatory forces at work in Youtube's comment section

Link: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/sites/is2015/images/Wesley_Verge_Prospectus.txt

WesleyVerge (talk) 16:19, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Wesley!

I am very intrigued by the "solutions" there are to change the culture of the comment sections. It is really an intriguing phenomenon that one could be watching a video about puppies and suddenly 4 comments down glance over an argument that Obama was sent by satan himself to destroy the world. I've always been curious as to how this has not been regulated more strictly. I think you raise great points why and the concerns Google is faced with. If I were doing this project I might also attempt to compare this to other sites as well that must face similar challenges. For example you suggest in your assignment that youtube channels direct traffic to sites like Reddit, but is that really an escape for the channel as this implies? Can these "trolls" not go over to reddit to promote their hate just as easily, or do they have different solutions in play that regulate these sorts of issues better? As far as I know both are anonymous to an extent so with this anonymity many of these trolls have "keyboard muscles" as I like to call them. I can understand twitter because many times it is much more personal but even there people can create fake accounts and troll all the same, just see Jimmy Kimmels skit on celebrity reading mean tweets.

I really like your focus on famous YouTubers I just think it may also be beneficial and worth mentioning how other sites with the same prevalent issue have tried to combat trolling. Also from a legal side, are all of these comments protected by the law and free speech? Perhaps because of the enormity of all the comments and comment sections, it is simply impossible to regulate what is said in every section from a legal perspective. Food for thought, but in any case great project idea.

Best of luck, Ryan

Rhurls (talk) 16:56, 8 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Prospectus Title: Knocking the Wind out of Whistleblowers: The US' response to the growing threat from WikiLeaks

Link: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Kelly.WilsonAssignment_2.docx

Kelly.wilson (talk) 16:38, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Kelly,

Interesting topic. There are a couple of perspectives you may want to consider about when defining what you mean by Whistleblower and the response in each situation. 1) Exposing illegal acts. 2) Exposing immoral acts. 3) Exposing Acts designed to embarrassed your political opponents or as retribution.

Should they all be treated the same and afforded equal protection?

Good luck!

RMarkow (talk) 00:10, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hi Kelly,

This is a very interesting topic and something that I personally am not familiar with so I really look forward to reading it once it is completed. Another perspective that you could also consider in conjunction with RMarkow's suggestion would be to look at whistleblowers in light of the First Amendment. I also think that you will have more avenues to approach this topic after today’s class. Good Luck, Jan.Yburan (talk) 13:39, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Tasha

Prospectus Title: Exploring the Complexity of Rapidly Evolving Information in a Bodybuilding Forum and the Challenges of Quality Assurance

Link: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Tasha_Assignment_2_Prospectus.docx

TashaTasha (talk) 17:12, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Tasha,

I like a lot your choice of community . It is unusual and at the same time you could find a lot of things to explore-both from legal and ethical stand point. I would say that your questions and reflections are on the right track. I think that one of the issues you could explore is the fact that they are often used as a platform for unlicensed sell of drugs. If you choose to go for this, you should have to take a good look on the definitions in order to differ “Drugs” for “Nutrition Supplements” because this is the tricky moment. How the website is protecting itself from such kind of activity (by its Terms of use or in other ways) , might be interesting as well. Above you could find two links that might be of some use. Good luck!

The first is little bit old but interesting: http://www.hhs.gov/asl/testify/t000525b.html

http://health.wusf.usf.edu/post/unlicensed-pharmacies-selling-compounded-drugs-online

(Gia (talk) 20:54, 8 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Hi Tasha,

Excellent choice of topic and just by browsing the forums a bit I’ve noticed that is an extremely active community and it would be an interesting read to see what you make out of this. It seems that some of the questions fall in line with Lessig’s four forces (law, norms, market, and architecture) so I think that is a great place to start. I am also interested if you considered in taking a look the community’s self-regulation whether that plays a big part in exposing false information.

Best of Luck! Jan.Yburan (talk) 14:01, 10 March 2015 (EDT) ______

Name: Josefin Sasse

Prospectus Title: A case study on the children's website Kidzworld and how they deal with threats against being a safe environment for children.

Link: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:JosefinSasse.pdf JosefinS (talk) 17:26, 3 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Josefin!

I find your topic utterly intriguing. I had no idea such a website existed and it's been quite fascinating just poking around the website a little bit. I think it is a very valid point to raise about "who monitors Kidzworld", because there doesn't seem to be much of a screening process to ensure the user that is signing up for an account is in fact between the ages of 9-17. Also, I see you have cited the Pew Research Center study from the readings, which is a great resource for dissecting the demographics and statistics of harassment, but the study was done on "young adults" ranging from 18-29, and "young women" between the ages of 18-24 years old. Which I hope illuminates, rather than complicates, the issue of doing research on a demographic ranging from 9-17, but more so how do you set up a website that serves a population that would need adult consent to participate in almost everything they do. Along with privacy issues, I think the question of who is responsible for what and for whom is a great aspect you have raised in your paper! I would love to stay in touch and see the developments of your paper if that would be okay. I think this is the perfect website to investigate for this project.

Mhoching (talk) 00:10, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

---

Hi Josefin,

I think you picked a great online community to explore for your final project, not only because it is a social space for a specific group, but also because there seems to be some fairly strict regulations in place to maintain a safe environment for kids.

It might be interesting if you could find some weakness in its structure. For example can kids go into private chats or are all the chats and comment sections being screened. If they are being screened, is it by a computer generated logarithm or real people?

Another question that you could delve into is, how do the site’s administrators know the users are minors. Do they require parents’ permission? If so how do they prove it is actually a real parent?

I hope these suggestions are helpful. I am looking forward to seeing your finished project.

Best, Emily

EmiMac (talk) 00:13, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Josefin

What an interesting concept. I don't know if I can even believe such a places exists on the internet. I think it’s important to make the distinction between researching the website itself and the researching the regulatory forces at work within the community. Your research questions included both, I think, and I just think for this particular assignment it’s important to emphasize the regulatory aspect a little more. We need a working knowledge on how the website runs and works, but really what regulatory forces are at play coming from the website creators, who they answer to, what the children agree to by using the site, what their parents consent to, etc, etc. I am very interested to read more once you’ve got more down on paper! If you want an extra pair of eyes to run it by once you have a draft, just reach out and let me know! wesleyverge@g.harvard.edu

Wesley

WesleyVerge (talk) 15:06, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Brooke Tjarks

Prospectus: Art. Business. Fans. (...) How this collaborative space shapes mass visual media production and worldwide distribution

Link: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Prospectus.Brooke.Tjarks.pdf

---

Hello, Tjarks!

I would definitely recommend that you stick with IMDb, since it appears that there is a lot that you could go over (your other two options seem to have fewer issues.) In your prospectus, you mention how (on IMDb) business leaders and creatives are given an incentive to pay in order to gain control their own pages, and in order to gain access to up to date contact information from fellow users. Perhaps you could do some research on the relationship that this regulation (non-paying users, who may be creatives or business leaders, do not have control over their pages) shares with the site's generativity (ability to create "unexpected content" seems more difficult to do, with this regulation in place.)

Mishal R. Kennedy (talk) 4:39PM, 10 March 2015 (EST)

---

Dear Brooke

Creativity-Online does not seem to have the social element that I think the class may be looking for. I get your interest in the structural controls, especially if the structure limits the interaction to just comments from readers. Commenting is a form of ad hoc community that could be a subject all its own, but most of the random articles I looked at did not have comments.

RottenTomatoes.com is new to me too. It seems like it is mainly aggregating reviews. So, I guess that is a community of professional reviewers. I did find that by joining you can “Rate movies & TV and see your friends' ratings, Get recommendations personalized for you, Join the discussion with other movie buffs.” I don’t know if the pros interact with the civilians here, but I suspect they read each other’s stuff. If I were writing or creating movies, this would be a place I could go to see what the ordinary folks think, right along with the reviewers.

imdb.com may be what you’re looking for. Once you’re a member, there are some privileges, and it would appear there are some controls in place that provide fodder for the project. There is a page I ran across that states it is “Community powered support for IMDb.com" See it at https://getsatisfaction.com/imdb/topics

I vote for IMDb.com

Gary Brown (talk) 21:26, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Hello Brooke,

Rotten Tomatoes is a movie news aggregator, which uses the reviews of people who are part of a guild or association, and who have garnered sufficient likes form users. Users can write their own reviews, which get rated by other users, so there is the social dimension. Rotten Tomatoes is also tied to Flixster.com, which allows users to stream content through the Ultraviolet app (all three owned by Warner Bros.). But, as you are after a space that the industry is involved in, this may not prove to be what you are after (though of course that could depend on your question). IMDb certainly looks like it has all the elements, as Gary points out. The site is owned by Amazon, which is now a producer of content, which could be an interesting factor in the regulation of the site.

Looks like you’ll need to do some exploring, to help define a question that helps bring the project into focus. There might be something in comparing the different degrees of user input on these sites.

Good luck!

AlexanderH (talk) 10:56, 10 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Name: Abby McHugh

Prospectus Title: From #Thinspiration to “Low Carb Friends”: The Regulation of Online Weight Loss Content

Link: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2015/File:Amchugh_Assignment2.docx

---

Hi Abby!

Okay, so I really wich I had chosen this issue. It is great that you did!

To facilitate the work, I would recommend that you are more specific in which websites you are going to explore since there is so much #thinspo content out there. But Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest, and Instagram are great platforms to explore, together with blogs like you said.

Other things you might want to discuss are:

What makes the most harm: #thinspo/pro-ana blogs and posts or limitations on freedom of speech by regulating such content? (On my part, I am determined in my opinion that #thinspo is devastating and that regulation in this case is a good thing.)

Who is active in this community?

Could pro-ana be illegitimate harassment? Compare it the possibility of a pro-cancer or a pro-aids community (deadly diseases just like anorexia).

What effects could/does the sometimes lack of regulation have on the community online and offline? Good luck! You´ve chosen a very interesting subject!

/Josefin

JosefinS (talk) 11:08, 5 March 2015 (EST)

---

Abby, I am so impressed and dare I say jealous that you picked such an important subject for your paper. Here are a few things that come to mind as I read your plan. I hope at least one of them is helpful. - I LOVE that you have already started a list of references. My critique for your references is to add more scholarly sources to substantiate your conclusions. For example, perhaps a database like “Mintel” or “IBISWorld” will have metrics regarding weight loss CONSUMER trends globally or in the United States. From another angle, you could find articles in scholarly psychology journals or *gasp* BOOKS in the library of a graduate psychology program. I am a student at Pepperdine, too, and I love their graduate psychology library and their electronic databases. If you want me to request anything and have it sent to you, do not hesitate to ask. And from yet another angle, perhaps we could find legal cases that relate to your topic, as well. I would be more than happy to work with you to find more sources because I just love your topic so much. - Carbohydrates are critical for healthy brain function. Perhaps that is important in your paper, as well? Elephant in the room? - If you decide to mention similar trends or implications of the “thinspo” trend, maybe consider body building inspiration on social media and blogs and why it is both equally obsessive but healthier. - Another thing that concerns me about your topic is privacy. Not just the privacy of those with eating disorders, but all individuals participating in the online weight loss chatter. And also, the trend to take pictures of one’s body and put those photographs online. What are the implications of this?

Batjarks (talk) 18:26, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

Hello, Tjarks!

I would definitely recommend that you stick with IMDB, since it appears that there is a lot you could go over (especially when compared with your other two options, which seem to have less issues to do research on.) In your prospectus (referring to the third section on IMDB), you mentioned how business leaders and creatives are given an incentive to pay in order to control their own pages, or to access up to date contact information from fellow users. Perhaps you could do some research on the relationship that this regulation (non-paying users, who may be creatives or business leaders, do not have control over their pages) shares with the community's

---

Note: If I’m a little direct in the comments, I really mean the best. Hope it doesn’t offend anyone. 

Ryan Hurley: I think professor said stay away from these huge websites. Perhaps you could discuss with the professors if Facebook is the right website to focus on?

Olivia Brinich: I think you’re asking a lot of questions to be answered here.

“How does it Pind and protect information, how do copyrighters choose to deal with the individual cases of copyright infringement, and what happens when a clip is wrongfully targeted for copyright violation, i.e., the adverse unintended consequences of Content ID?”

Perhaps you should just focus on one main thesis and explore on that. For example, focusing on how copyrighters deal with copyright infringement, and how that eventually influenced youtube to introduce copyright ID system.

One last issue is whether youtube is too big of a website to focus on. Perhaps you could narrow it down to say, copyright issues for music on youtube.

Erika L. Rich: I think it’s a very broad term to discuss the ethical considerations. Perhaps if you narrowed it down to 1 or 2 main issues you find extremely compelling about the website and community? Or maybe I have simply mistaken your train of thought.

Emily MacIntyre: I like how you had such conviction to talk about youtube that despite its size, its still worth researching about. I think you could also talk a little bit about how these game commentators earn their living by commenting on games. PewDiePie is estimated to earn millions every year. It could show a greater perspective on things if we could see their earnings as well. South Park actually has a very funny episode about commentators commenting on commentators commenting on games on youtube.

Matt K: Do you think that changing the title to reflect your research would make it easier for the reader? (Just a thought) I think its interesting how you mentioned “democratic instrument”, bringing politics into the way his blog is ran. According to the quote you took, Scalzi has indeed used some controls over potential commentators. Furthermore, you should consider that if it’s a blog about all sorts of things, with John’s comments on it, he should also be open to listen to commentators reply to this, especially if its about sensitive topics. If he’s going to filter away those he “considers” as offensive, then perhaps he shouldn’t comment on other things either. (unless the comment really does not have a valid point and is not related to the topic)

Edwin Duque: Good to see you in this class too. I think you should just focus on one website. I’d do JuryX instead of Facebook as professor said big websites aren’t good. Also, you’d need a stronger thesis to connect what the real question is. Is it about allowing free sharing? Or is it about limiting what gets shared? I’m a little confused with your thesis.

Chelly Byrne: I think you have a strong thesis here. The contradictions between sharing information on the internet, and the fear of being exposed would be very interesting. I think you can even go into the subscription process. I assume the website allows anyone to join. This means that even predators could read up on what victims write. Unfortunately, they probably get quite the entertainment from reading it, or pretending to ask “leading” questions. As you said, just a tiny bit of excessive information leaked out could result in a victim being violated again. I guess you could talk about that.

Chanel Rion: Since you’re talking about Yelp and reviews, I’d like to share what I learned from another class. Most of these reviews are at the ends of the spectrum. Unless someone is a regular of Yelp and does a review for every restaurant, the rest of them would be people who had great experiences or really bad experiences. They won’t be bothered to write a review about a mediocre or average restaurant. It’s not worth their time. You could also mention that. Also, do you think there are fake reviews too? I’d go for siteJabbar.

Becca Lewis: Firstly its interesting how you’re talking about Reddit because I’m talking about Digg. I think new beliefs takes time to be adapted by the masses. Feminism isn’t very old, and its on going. I think it takes time for people to adapt to it, so for the short term I won’t be surprised if the discussion board sees a lot of anti-feminism people. But also do bare in mind that these are “beliefs”, just like “liberalism” (which is quite similar to feminism, fighting for individual rights, etc). Not everyone believes in these values, so some disagreements should be expected. I guess an interesting way could be to examine if people become more offensive when they are shown as anonymous. My thoughts are that it is. You could look at reddit discussions compared with the core values of Wikipedia, and why it worked for Wikipedia, but a little hard for Reddit.

Gary Brown: Are there any data on the selection process, or ventures that were rejected? It’s hard to associate it with discrimination if there is no evidence. Since you can’t prove or disprove this, it means “site controls” cannot be determined. Therefore you need to make a new thesis that really reflects the paper.

Meagan Moana HoChing: DOTA is a fun game. My initial response is that with huge amounts of ego on the line, that’s how bullying start. Haha. From what I read and know, it is the architecture that is dominantly the issue. This structure allows the audience to exploit it. I think you could also investigate is how is “harassment” identified as? Calling someone a “loser”? Do note that a lot of cyber bullying are to kids that people know in real life. So can we causally say trash talking is the same as harassing? When NBA players trash talk one another, I don’t think they considered it as harassing. So I guess this definition needs to be very clear.

Caroline B: Perhaps you could mention NPOV as one of their values they used in order to keep readers like yourself going to the website.

Jan Yburan: Second Reddit I saw today. Haha. I think you need to be weary of the upvote system. More popular and famous people would get a self –fulfilling upvote treatment, where as more niche people or radical ones would get less. This way of identifying success might be a little questionable.

Alex Samaei: I’d be more interested in how kickstarter protects pledgers from potential false projects. This seems like a very good question for privacy and control.

Gia: “New scambaiters can request to be assigned a "mentor" to assist them in learning how to bait.”

I think this is really cool.

“. In the past, scammers were tricked into sending money themselves, which was later given to charity.”

That’s crazy. Not sure who the scammer is now. I’d spend more time discussing the aspect about scammers being scammed by scambaiters, and the moral and ethical implications of it.

Mishal R. Kennedy: I think you have a legit question there. Looking at whether deleting an old post or controlling spambots to be more important. You could also consider that perhaps it was the ease of registration that led to the spambots. Deleting the old posts doesn’t actually go to the root of the problem. I guess you could also talk more about the ease of registration.

Richard Markow: I think you should just talk about 1 or 2 points out of the 5. Don’t think you have enough space to write that much.

Alexander H: Do you think you could also go into the ease of account creation? To attain legitimacy, the website would need real personal data to determine that the petition is signed by a real person. If so the privacy concerns would be the biggest. A deeper look at the terms and agreement is a must.

Meredith Blake: That’s an interesting take on Yelp. I do believe that the reviews are either from the ones who enjoyed the restaurant the most, or the ones that hated it. The ones in the middle won’t be bothered to write a review.

Wesley Verge: Personally I think it is an inevitable part of anonymity and high view count. There’s bound to be a few trolls, but that too is what makes youtube entertaining. I think youtube just needs to make a better flagging system.

Kelly Wilson: You could talk about how the internet might influence more people to be whistleblowers, or even anonymous whistleblowers.

Tasha: I think to begin with you need to bare in mind that a lot of fitness people already know the difference between science and bro-science. I further believe that bodybuilding.com would just allow people to say whatever they want knowing full well it is just a forum. As long as they don’t endorse it, they shouldn’t be liable. But as such, you should also talk about the privacy of fitness people on the website. A lot of them post photos up too, and their diet and schedules.

Josefin S: Nice logo. I don’t really like the age range for kidzworld.com. It doesn’t make sense for 9 year olds to interact with 17 year olds. Furthermore, I wouldn’t want my 9 year old kid to socialize with 17 year old kids and being taught 17 year old stuff. So my biggest concern, as you also mentioned, is how do they keep content separate between different ages to prevent the younger kids to learn the wrong stuff? Or do they not do this at all?

Brooke Ashley Tjarks: Yes, I’d agree with you that IMDB is a good balance between the other two websites. I think by becoming a member, the legitimacy of the votes would become higher. There’s bound to be some sort of influence between people regardless of the platform, so I think IMDB is an interesting one to investigate further.

---

- Brooke Tjarks here responding to Caelum -

Thank you so much for the feedback. I am defintely going with IMBD. Another interesting aspect of the platform is the accuracy of content that the website tries to uphold and the methods that they use to ensure this. For example, users with profiles who edit pages must sign legal documents online (such as NDA's) before editing. The more I thought it over the more I realized how different each of the sites I considered truly are, but IMDB has the most to offer for this assignment. Thank you again for your support.

Batjarks (talk) 17:53, 9 March 2015 (EDT)

---

Amchugh: I think you could go into internet being free also has its consequences. Since the internet could edit and post something online in a matter of seconds, it becomes very vulnerable for unintended things to hit the net. The filtering has to either occurred before the posting, or after it has been up. When it’s up already, it’s hard to say whether the rest of them would oblige, or would they prefer to continue the troll game. You could talk about the reasons for why Twitter would take it down (assuming that it does not violate Twitter’s policies).

Note: Good luck everyone!

Caelum (talk) 13:43, 6 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hi Caelum,

Thanks for your comments. There are a lot of interesting issues, both legal and ethical and the subject is controversial for sure. Good luck with your project as well!

(Gia (talk) 20:54, 8 March 2015 (EDT))

---

Hello, Gia!

Your topic is very interesting! It appears that you have found a ton of research questions to go over! You mentioned in your prospectus how the site decided to add a new rule to its guidelines preventing members of its community from tricking scammers into sending money over to them. I think this would be an interesting issue to do some investigation on (especially on the effects that such a regulation has on the effectiveness of scambaiting - Does this make scambaiting possibly less effective? Losing money may deter some.)

Mishal R. Kennedy (talk) 4:51PM, 10 March 2015 (EST)

---

Hello, Amchugh!

The topic that you have chosen in your prospectus is very interesting, indeed! I would recommend that you investigate the relationship between the particular regulation that you mentioned in your prospectus (removing "unhealthy content") and the issue of users posting potentially harmful content on these websites. (Are these regulations doing anything to solve the problem? Or are they causing more harm to the community? Are they justified, if this is the case?)

Mishal R. Kennedy (talk) 4:51PM, 10 March 2015 (EST)

---