Trapping Ignorance

I’m generally against tracking and monitoring of innocent people, and I support the 1st amendment (and the rest of the amendments, and the constitution) so I’ll probably argue with myself about this one, but….

It would be so easy to identify racism, sexism, and other hatred using comment posts. Half of the commenting systems aren’t even anonymous (Facebook, google+, etc.) so it’s just a simple database back to their social security number. The fake-name systems really aren’t anonymous unless the user uses extra tactics to make them so.

We could build some community policing system so that when Dave Smith from Lubbock, TX posts raw hatred that really crosses a line for you, you could downvote or flag the guy and offer a reason. [Sorry to other Dave Smith browsers or robots that were brought here by a search engine, it’s a made up name]

I’m already arguing with myself here though — I don’t want to give you all the power to give me trouble for my opinions. In My America, if you don’t like what I’m saying you basically have three options: you move on, and/or you form your debate in words, and/or you spend your money elsewhere.

So would it be worth it? If we could flag and rate people based on how much Hateraid they spit at the world, would it be accurate enough to improve our overall performance?

The end result would be some rating, like a credit rating on how much hatred you post.

This is the result of me thinking about Peeple, that horrible idea of a social network also made by optimists. They just want everyone to post nice things so you can better determine who to do business with, or dammit, even be friends with. An online reputation manager that looks like Facebook. Multiple-vector attacks are forcing them to modify their system.

Also – I doubt a machine can detect snark. Can it sort through irony, examples, and mockery? This would need to be people-based, and then, who are these people? Why would I trust them? I get banned from sites that I should be honored at which proves it’s not easy to read a virtual room.