Should political and civic action be crowdsourced?
Here at Stanford, we could organize a protest. The protest would most likely occur online, and definitely through a web interface. Communication would appear authentic but participants would be paid. UbiComp sites can facilitate these types of activities. Emails are written to senators. Resturants are given positive reviews. Comments are posted, letters are sent and seemingly authentic activity is appearing online, but is created by paid individuals on crowdsourcing sites.
Should this be possible? Is it ethical to participate in these activities? What if a user is participating and decides to only write for causes they support? Is it possible or realistic to enforce regulations in this space?
808lika
January 9, 2010 @ 2:58 pm
Should this be possible online? Don’t see how anyone could stop it. It’s already happening. Such astro-turfing is already being done in business and, in politics, by the far right IRL. Facilitating the online part would just be an extension. Business might have to pay but far right wingnuts could be brought aboard easily without pay.
Ethical? Of course, not. Won’t stop political astro-turfing but recognition of the possibility of being discovered and embarrassed could and should stop businesses.
Writing for only that with which one agrees? To participate in something that is tainted with a lack of ethics is inevitable. (It’s called living IRL.) The question is to what extent do we participate. I’ll be thinking about what regulations might be enforceable. Don’t have any answers now.
(All a man’s affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils.~Sophocles)
Aloha, Lika