Earlier on in the development of the class and the website project, a class member questioned legal issues that could be associated with the Rate My Company website idea. Of course being my project I instantly wanted to say OF COURSE THERE ARE NO ISSUES but thought about it for a bit. I do feel that any public and social websites should have a clear disclaimer, with the help of some intelligent lawyers to separate themselves from any comments made on the website, but with the world of the web, a site used to express pure opinion from users would seem to have much more limited liabilities.
To my knowledge (which isn’t a complete legal encyclopedia…) Rolling Stone never got sued for giving an album a bad review, Siskel and Ebert haven’t been taken down by Hollywood Studios for giving a movie the thumbs down. This site would be the soap box for users to voice those same type opinions. The site wouldn’t have any stance on the entities included. There will always need to be some moderation, a “report this post,” or something similar to make sure inappropriate material isn’t being posted, porn spam doesn’t plaster over the site, etc.
In many of the videos that were assigned talk about the restraints that can impact the development and execution of creativity and ideas on the web basically stem from the fact that people are becoming more frantic about covering their own backs than allowing freedom of content and creativity, the actual foundations of how the internet actually began. ISPs trying to prevent large downloads, access to websites, limitations on what can be done defy exactly what it is there for. Who knows how long that is going to push to and from.
The ethical issues that S. Basse discusses in his article “Gift of fire: Social, legal, and ethical issues in computing” speak to issues that are separate than the ones that I have outlined for my site. There is no intent of harm, or even wrong for that matter. By allowing people to openly offer their opinions in the same forum without stifling their ability to share their thoughts, but keeping an ethical view on the opportunity to ensure that boundaries aren’t crossed to inappropriate and questionable content.
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