Darin Thompson's List: Reputation/Vigilantism

• What do you get when you mix Google's complex search algorithm with rampant reputational concerns and a nascent industry offering to placate nervous CEOs fretting over seeing their head shots listed in search results for the latest scandal? 

   Answer: The shady underworld of the growing online-reputation-management industry.
• Moreover, these practices go against the spirit of direct and democratic conversations between businesses and their stakeholders, one of the better results achieved through the use of social media.
• It's time for the online reputation management industry to clean up its own act before it can have any hope of credibly doing the same for businesses.

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• If you've been a victim of online harassment, here's reassurance that the legal system takes it seriously.
• It's not just the law that needs to catch up with social media, but manners too and manners can't be legislated for.

• In a major house-keeping sweep, YouTube have wiped over two billion views off many major label act videos, including reducing Lady Gaga's channel count by a staggering 156 million views yesterday.

• Jerk.com is perhaps the most abusive and offensive website on the Internet.  In addition to encouraging the voting on whether people are jerks they allow the most vile commentary to be published.  I can’t think of anything else to call this other than cyber bullying. 

• 41 percent of parents said they were concerned about cyberbullying through Facebook use, while 30 percent of parents believed their child already experienced cyberbullying.

• For those unfamiliar, the DMCA gives an apparatus where companies can send requests to search engine firms like Google Inc. (GOOG), demanding they remove certain search results that are believed to contain "stolen" intellectual property.  By blacklisting sites, companies can stop users from finding them and (in theory) halt the spread of the "stolen" work.
   
   Such requests are often abused.  Google claims 1/3rd of takedown requests are not valid copyright claims and the three fifths target a competitor's webpage.
• In fact Microsoft's third-party DMCA takedown contractor Marketly llc, asked Google to remove "bing.com" from its search results 11 times.  Microsoft's contractor also asked Google 335 times to take down its own homepage, on Microsoft's behalf.

• Google may have to act quicker to remove potentially libellous posts from its Blogger platform following a court of appeal ruling in London.
• The case is being seen as a landmark action because it the first time the higher court has addressed the issue of Google's liability for defamation on its blogging platform.

• Google cannot be held responsible in the UK for libellous or offensive content that appears on its Blogger service. The blogging site allows anyone to set up a platform for airing their views on almost any subject they feel strongly about.

• Information sharing in medicine and health care is undergoing major changes in the United States, but if these changes are improperly managed, there could be devastating repercussions. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) populations - which already experience staggering health care inequalities - have the potential to be hit especially hard by these reforms.

• A law student who bombarded the football commentator Stan Collymore with racist tweets has been sentenced to two years' community service and ordered to pay £150 legal costs.

• A law student who bombarded the football commentator Stan Collymore with racist tweets has been sentenced to two years' community service and ordered to pay £150 legal costs.

  Joshua Cryer had initially claimed that his Twitter account had been hacked, but was spared jail after pleading guilty to the offence.
• The 21-year-old admitted sending grossly offensive messages in breach of section 127 of the Communications Act, hoping to "snare a celebrity" on Twitter, where response tweets from well-known people are highly valued.

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• Twitter users angered by the conviction of a man who threatened to blow up an airport in a Twitter joke showed support for him in their thousands today, thumbing their noses at the law by republishing the words that landed him in trouble.

• To defend its position, Google finally took off the gloves this Tuesday, launching a powerful anti-Lex Google campaign, Defend Your Net (Verteidige Dein Netz). The campaign calls Google users in Germany to sign a petition against this law and to contact their authorized representatives in the Bundestag to express their concerns.
• One day after launching the campaign, Google already reported about 25,000 signatures and counting. This finally made Chancellor Angela Merkel pay attention, but she continues to support the law.

• VANCOUVER -- Online vigilantes such as those who took part in the name-and-shame-athon after the 2011 Stanley Cup riot may believe they are helping police round up criminals.

  But experts say this crowd-sourced policing is heralding a new age of e-justice that can slow down an investigation, particularly with the proliferation of so many fake or doctored videos and images — an emerging trend in the digital mashup culture.
• Turns out, Anton may have been at the riot but he didn’t do any of the things he bragged about on Facebook and won’t be charged, according to Vancouver police

• In a world where a reference check begins with a Google search, the mob has given many students and young adults a life sentence. There is a reason, however slow and unwieldy, that the administration of justice has been delegated to the state. Internet justice, unlike the real kind, is swift and severe—and not necessarily right or fair.