Ever posted something anonymously? Ever been involved in a “Flame War.” Even if you haven’t, you’ve seen the nasty comments posted on YouTube, and you’ve cringed at what some of your friends say and share online. F-bombs, pictures of people drunk in college or yesterday litter the online landscape. All of these things damage the credibility of the online space and lessen our value as fellow human beings.
The social web has opened up opportunities for everyone but it also comes without rules, regulation or moderation. Unless we want to live solely by what Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg allows, we need to be self policing. Now don’t call me a prude or old fashioned. It’s time to get serious about behaving ourselves online. Otherwise we’ll look back in ten years and see a virtual wasteland. Need an example, go troll MySpace for about five minutes. Sure MySpace is trying to clean up their act, but it’s essentially an online ghetto because they allowed people to run wild.
Character Counts in Iowa is doing is getting serious about this issue by doing something about it. Character Counts in Iowa has partnered with Social Media Club Des Moines to talk about the topic of Online Civility at an event on October 28 at Jasper Winery. Online Civility is part of Character Count’s Reveal Your Character initiative and the event will serve to kick off their campaign. You can read the press release here.
This is no small effort either. Character Counts in Iowa will present their message, the creative to support it and reveal their Web site. They’ll ask social media voices in central Iowa to stand up and give their take on Online Civility as well.
What is Lessing-Flynn going to do about this? Well from here on out, AdMavericks will only be taking comments from real people. While we won’t always catch everything, we’ll try to make sure that the person commenting is identified. We haven’t had a problem in the past with hateful comments but we won’t tolerate that either. Want to comment? Post your first and last name and keep it clean.
So you’ve made it this far and you’re wondering how you can you get involved? Any of the following will suffice:
1. Go to the event. It’s free.
2. Write your own blog post and state your position on Online Civility. Then, let us know about it so we can share your message.
3. Share this post on Twitter or Facebook.
4. Direct people to the event page.
Thanks, and hope to see you on October 28.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This couldn’t come at a better time. I’m not sure if it’s the election or what, but things are getting pretty nasty out there in facebook land.
I think a good rule of thumb is, don’t post something that is going to hurt someone’s feelings.
Is there a reason people have to let their entire social network know everything that they hate? Especially when the things people post directly and negatively effect people in their network? Talk about your cat or something.
Great post, Fleming. We all stand to benefit from doing our part to help clean up the “online ghetto.” And we can do so by practicing fun and cordial means of communication online, and perhaps planting a tree in Harlem, so to speak.
BTW, what got into that last commenter? Pretty harsh, dude.
{ 2 trackbacks }