A little while back Facebook got a lot of slack for refusing to ban some particularly reprehensible hate speech groups. While Facebook’s representative employed the cause of free speech in their defense, many commentators have pointed out that, as a private company, Facebook has complete control of the speech on their site. (I wrote most of this series when this event was still playing out, but chose to take some time before completing it and posting.)  I believe, it is important to take a historical perspective when dealing with issues like this. Luckily, the Supreme Court has something to say on this issue. At least they do if you consider Facebook to share legal characteristics with a shopping mall.

Shopping mall owners have a tendency to go overboard in banning speech they personally disagree with. For example, t-shirts with such slogans as “Give Peace a Chance” have often been considered unacceptable by mall owners.

While a mall is used in roughly the same way as main street used to be, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that as private property the First Amendment doesn’t apply. Facebook too remains private property, which can be easily forgotten as, like a mall atrium, it is increasingly used as a public space. Given this precedent, it stands to reason that Facebook has no legal obligation to allow hate speech.

However, is it desirable that Facebook take it upon themselves to censor hateful viewpoints such as those in question? As the central online community space for a whole generation at least 2.5 generations, one could argue that it would be more desirable for Facebook to install their own First Amendment.

Why? This makes Facebook less likely to abuse their power to ban whatever they feel like. A lot of legitimate activism takes part on and through Facebook, including a lot of political activity. If Facebook is to remain a platform for such activity, a freedom of speech policy is critical.

For example, Facebook technically could have banned all speech favorable of the Obama campaign leading up to the recent election. Cries of censorship wouldn’t matter from a legal perspective. However, given Obama’s popularity on Facebook, such an action could have skewed the results in favor of McCain

It could be argued that, like for public spaces, the best safeguard against abuse of power in a public-like space like Facebook is an absolutist policy on freedom of speech.

Specifically because there are no legal First Amendment protections inside Facebook, this question becomes more urgent. This is not a question the courts can answer for us.   It is a question we need to answer for ourselves.  Whatever paths Facebook and the other big social networks choose now will set the precedents for later.

In this series of posts, I will argue that online communities share more in common with universities, libraries, and newspapers than they do with shopping malls.

Please pardon any typos or grammatical errors. I am focusing my energies elsewhere, but wanted to get this out. Thanks. -Mike

ConvergeSouth 2006 began Friday night with a barbeque in Greensboro’s historic Aycock district. The barbeque was tons of fun and I got to eat with the North Carolina U.S. Representative Brad Miller. ConvergeSouth is an annual semi-unconference on blogging, podcasting, and videocasting. I say semi-unconference because the schedule was pre-determined and each session had a scheduled moderator, but was discussion oriented.

I first heard about it last year while I was taking a class titled “Blogging, We the Media, and Virtual Communities“. Unfortunately, I was unable to make it then and have been waiting ever since.

The conference attracted a wide variety of people involved in blogging. Among others, the participants included community organizers, hobbyists, consultants, politicians, and journalists. There were political bloggers from both ends of the spectrum; which proved interesting for the first session led by Elizabeth Edwards. Mrs. Edwards, who was speaking on building online communties, kept her politics out of the discussion completely. She told of how she has participated in online communities for nearly as long as the internet itself. Some of her favorite communities have included music lyric contribution sites and grammar usage newsgroups. She joked about how there were newsgroups titled both alt.usage.grammar and alt.grammar.usage. She used this as an example of how the web has helped her see that there are lots of ways to see things. It sounded as if this is one of the major ideas in her mind as she approaches the web. She has also turned to online support groups for more serious issues such as the loss of her son and her recent cancer.

Mrs. Edwards then spoke about her experiences building online communities related to political campaigns and community initiatives. One of her key points was the importance of being able to translate online community into community activism. While this could mean simply donating money through the website, it more properly refers to community members acting locally through face-to-face meetings with one another and their communities.

At one point Mike Krempasky, co-founder of Redstate.com, was invited up to the front so that leaders from both ends of the political spectrum could discuss how they deal with online community building. One of the topics brought to their attention, was whether they find posting a topic that is provocative to community members is better or worse than posting something that is agreed upon by all. It seemed that a lot of that had to do with what the particular point of the community was. In general it seemed that a post too provocative often causes more problems within the community even though it increases discussion. It sounded as though Redstate has found that topics everyone agrees upon are usually best for helping the community stay focused on its goals. This was funny in a way as Mr. Krempasky later took the opportunity to say that he “thought Brad Miller ought to be re-elected” thus provoking major online discussions. I actually went to a dinner hosted by Mike and everyone seemed to find it amusing how quickly the comments built up on the Daily Kos. It was new to me to meet political bloggers from either side and see how they use blogs. For the most part, everyone got along well and kept the discussions to the shared interests of blogging and online community.

Elizabeth Edwards mentioned that she grew up in a military community where the shared interests of cummunity members brought everyone together. She said that she is trying to re-create this feeling of community in all of the connections she makes online and off. Throughout the discussion she stressed that one of the best parts of online community is that it brings people together around a shared interest while leaving out the conflict that can arise from peripheral conflicting interests.

To a question about net neutrality, Elizabeth Edwards said that net neutrality was “enormously” important and was the, “Last town square we’ve got.”

Mrs. Edwards pointed out the importance of local bloggers and how politicians need to pay close attention to their voices. She gave an example of how her husband, John Edwards, has added an endorsement the other night because local bloggers pointed the importance of the candidate out to his staff.

While many other topics were discussed, I want to point out two discussions particularly relevant to this blog. When asked about the future of online community, Mrs. Edwards, highlighted the importance of driving dialogue to small, local, communities such as “libraries” and some other places I can’t remember.

Ed Cone told a story about how he once posted a message to a Tar Heel Basketball fan listserv asking whether they should make an exception and support Coach K in his role as coach of the U.S. team. One minute later, Elizabeth had responded, no they had to support the U.S. team despite the fact that Coach K was their coach.

In part two of my notes, I will share why the Scobles (Robert and Mary)am gave me a t-shirt during their talk.

Technorati tags: convergesouth convergesouth2006 blogging elizabethedwards onlinecommunties virtualcommunities

A few days ago, Peter Bromberg of Library Garden posted a version of an essay called “Library as Place”. I had the good fortune to meet Peter at Library Camp a few weeks ago, and I wholeheartedly agree with the arguments of his essay. However, I feel it is important that we, as librarians, look beyond the walls of the library when discussing library as place. We need to expand our vision to include digital library as place. We are already doing this implicitly by incorporating social tools such as blogs and wikis into our websites. However, by explicately acknowledging this phenomenon, we can utilize what we already know about the physical library as place when building online communities. In fact, I originally created my Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model to demonstrate the parallels between physical and virtual library places. It was only after completing the model that I took the additional step of recognizing the virtual library places as Library 2.0.

When discussing library as place, Peter brings in the concept of “third place”. It is exactly this version of physical library as place that my model hopes to parallel in the virtual world. Peter explains:

By our very nature we offer people a “third place” (not home, not work) where they can come to explore, imagine, think, learn, play, and reflect. Our function as a “third place” has never been more important to our continued health and relevance. If libraries are to survive and thrive we must redouble our efforts and refocus our energies to ensure that we are not only “third places” but destinations of choice.

Taken in a different context, isn’t this exactly what we are trying to transform our web sites into? MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr are wonderful examples of the online third places that people spend their time. What is different about the virtual world is that it is easier to incorporate the library into other third places. For example, if a patron is on your library’s MySpace page, then it could be argued that they are both at MySpace and your Library.

For those who are having trouble conceptualizing of the web as a place, lets look at the example of Second Life instead. As a 3D virtual world, Second Life is more obviously a place. The Second Life Library 2.0 is also the most obvious example of digital library as third place. If a patron is at their house on their computer in Second Life at Library 2.0, where are they? If they are focused enough, they are at the Second Life Library 2.0. Where we are is often more mental than it is physical. By embracing this concept, we will be able to build more compelling physical and virtual places. How might we go about this? Peter asks the following:

Why would someone in our community choose to spend their time here rather than somewhere else? Related questions might be: What does the library look like, smell like, feel like, and sound like? What do our signs communicate? What kind of environment are we offering to the community and how do library staff contribute to the creation of a friendly, welcoming environment?

Outside of smell, couldn’t we apply all of these questions to our websites? To conclude, the next time you find yourself discussing “library as place”, please ask how the discussion would apply to the online world.

Technorati tags: libraryasplace library2.0 secondlife thirdplace academiclibrary20

I have updated the original Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model. The new version aims to maintain the simplicity of the original, while adding a few examples and using more precise language. Also worth noting is that the line separating the physical and virtual environments is now dotted to signify the artificial nature of this boundary.

This model presents a view of how students might view the library as place in relation to their academic and social lives. It is at this intersection that I propose Library 2.0 has begun to materialize. The primary goal of the model is to encourage brainstorming over how we can develop virtual environments that will fit into students’ lives. However, I would argue that new collaborative spaces in the physical environment could also be viewed as part of L2 in so much as they are responses to changing learning styles that are partially brought on by the social nature of Web 2.0 tools. In this way, a definition of L2 that focuses on Web 2.0 might include some innovative services in the physical environment. This said, it is my belief that L2 is primarily useful as a concept for developing new online tools. To learn more about this model, you can check out the post accompanying the first model here. The comments and links at the bottom of that page will help guide one through the discussions of the original model.

I have also created a more detailed version of the model. In this version the boundary between physical and virtual has vanished. Furthermore, this model includes interaction types as well as places. Instead of focusing on exact tasks such as shaking hands (physical) or commenting (virtual), I have looked at interactions in a broader way. At this point, the key is a little confusing on the model, so please use the revised key posted below the model. However, the basic goal is to get people thinking about designing virtual and physical places according to the types of social interactions our patrons will be having in those environments. You will also notice that ALL of the interactions mentioned occur in both the physical and virtual places. Of course we will be seeing more places inhabiting both physical and virtual as well. For example, virtual group study rooms might supplement our physical study rooms.

The scale at the bottom of the model highlights some of the key spectra that lie between a student’s social and academic lives. Again, it is my argument that the library inhabits a space somewhere in the middle ground between these extremes.

I am still working on these models and final drafts will be included in the second part of my Master’s Paper. I am also developing a model to describe Library 2.0 in general. I should have the paper done relatively soon and will post a link to it. Furthermore, the structure of the paper should work well for filling in the wiki that I proposed here.

As always, I encourage feedback. You are welcome to leave comments here or on your own blog. If you are linking to the image on Flickr, please link to this post as well, so that your contribution to the discussion will be included on this page. Thanks.

Technorati tags: library 2.0 library-20 library2.0 L2 web 2.0 web2.0 academic libraries academiclibrary20