the dark side of social media

Yes, much as I’m hooked on Facebook, blogging and the like, social media does have a dark side. I went to a discussion on this topic last night, organized by Chinwag. Issues discussed included identity theft, bullying, spam, political bloggers being baited into presenting extreme views, brands throwing their weight around, death threats, stalking, paedophilia and the Second Life sex trade.
Phew. It’s enough to give tabloid editors headlines.
It is a serious issue, and was also one of the Open Space topics discussed at the Blogs and Social Media Forum. But it was interesting to see, from a show of hands, that no one last night thought there were serious privacy/security issues with social media at the moment – but half the 150 attendees thought it would become a problem in the future.
I also learned two new words:

• sockpuppet – a false online identity used for bullying or deception
• astroturfing – creating an artificial grass roots movement; in this case, with multiple online identities.

It’s still early days in the world of social media, and I’m sure things will be tightened up where necessary. Otherwise, if this becomes a real issue on some sites, the market will just migrate elsewhere. I also think it’s an issue of education – teaching people how to use the social web safely.
The wider point is that the Internet is just a reflection of real life. It is not a repository of amoral behaviour, as some tabloids would have us believe; people behave badly offline too.
For a lighter look at The Dark Side, here’s a video mashup of Darth Vader, played by James Earl Jones in seventeen different roles (warning: contains some strong language):

There is a serious point to be made here too: George Lucas has changed his mind, dropped the lawsuits and now actually encourages this. It’s an example of a ‘publisher’ (OK, film producer in this case), giving away content for the greater marketing good. You can read some analysis of this over on Print is Dead.