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 Three, apparently unrelated, things you might know about me:
First, despite working in the nuu meeja sector, I’m something of a sceptic when it comes to much of what falls into this category, in terms of it being useful, effective, or even interesting.
Second, I’m a big fan of web comic xkcd.
Third, as evinced by the picture accompanying Emirates Business 24/7’s write-up
of yesterday’s Google agency day, I apparently enjoy, ahem, scratching myself during business lunches.
Yes, that last one was news to me, too. Please feel free to laugh now, and get it out of your system.
What do they all have to do with each other? Let me explain...
The focus of the aforementioned Google agency day was on ways to persuade clients – especially SMBs – that getting involved with sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and so on, is good marketing, and good for business.
Google’s man in the region, Husni Kuffash, pointed out yesterday that if YouTube were classed as a search engine, it would be bigger than Yahoo! in terms of numbers of searches – and indeed, there’s a lot of random stuff on there to be found (even if most of it is cats on keyboards). And what YouTube is doing for video, others are doing for information in general.
The current doyenne of user-generated content, Facebook, is trying to reposition itself as a searchable information source. Its most recent privacy settings refresh was specifically aimed at persuading users to make more of their posted content available to the world at large, rather than just their friends.
And the much-hyped micro-blogging service Twitter has now become a virtual watchword for real-time searches, with its “trending topics” sometimes making mainstream headlines – so much so that “regular” search engines such as Google, Microsoft’s Bing and others are battling offer their own real-time search results.
The common thread here is “user-generated”. If you actually stop to think about it, the phrase is a strange one; by definition everything (including this article) is generated by some sort of user. Aha, you might say, but “professional” “content” is produced by companies or groups of people. Well, so is much of what’s on YouTube – they just weren’t paid to do it, most of the time.
This bit of it, the YouTube video and Facebook picture bit – what we might call primary user-generated content – is fine. No probs. Yes, most of it is utter dreck, but then so is most of everything, everywhere.
No , my issue is with what I’ll call secondary user-generated content – specifically, comments and responses to other bits of content around the web.
The main distinction between primary and secondary UGC is not so much length, but genesis: secondary content is a reaction to something, rather than an “original” (not in the sense of creatively original) work.
The reason I believe it’s important to make this distinction comes down in large part to one thing: laziness. And it’s the lazy nature of secondary UGC that I believe makes it not just mostly pointless, but in fact actively dangerous.
In the shiny world of Web 2.0 (urgh), sites did their best to make adding a comment to a piece of content as easy as possible – sometimes to the point where you didn’t even have to sign up, and almost always with an option to be either anonymous or under a pseudonym.
This means that while someone wanting to make a blog post or upload a YouTube video has to put a reasonable amount of effort in, someone commenting on that content barely has to think before they write and post: taptaptaptap BAM – it’s done.
Easy. Too easy – especially for something that may take seconds to write, but might live on the web for years.
Don’t think this is dangerous? Just ask the staff at UAE e-magazine Hetta, which just got shut down, along with a whopping fine, for defaming the Abu Dhabi Media Company. The problem is, it wasn’t the magazine itself, but a user commenting on one of its stories, that defamed ADMC.
This isn’t new. Back in 2005, a blog got sued
thanks to other people commenting on it – and then, as now, free speech advocates were up in arms (although in that case, the suit was thrown out, as the plaintiff had made no attempt to ask for the comment to be removed first).
Personally – and I’m not a lawyer – I can’t understand what all the fuss is about. If, as a website owner, you allow people to post comments on your site, you have to take a certain amount of responsibility for them.
We live neither in a world without consequences, nor a world without responsibility – if you let people say whatever they like, with no way of knowing who they are, then you have to be accountable for that. No-one’s forcing you to allow comments.
But free comment is good, you cry – free speech keeps people accountable! Yes it does – but let’s be honest here. We’re mostly not talking about hard-hitting insightful comment; in fact, when it comes to marketing, we’re talking about fluff – and the idiots who comment on it.
Why do I feel justified in calling them idiots? Online comic xkcd (see?) illustrates the point well, with two cartoons: YouTube
and Listen to Yourself.
In case you don’t buy it, let’s look at a real-life example, culled at random from the front page of YouTube. This
is a rather dark video from College Humour, parodying ads for a US insurance company. And here are some of the 2,414 comments:
“@EdwardNS1 I don't know how many times I have to tell you, I AM NOT GAY! STOP requesting NUDE PHOTOS of me. And STOP THREATENING MY FAMILY. You are leaving a trail of evidence you know!”
“if you hang yourself your a pussy , and therfore, should I care ?”
“Ok so what really creeps me out is the comments on this video....WTF. I really doubt someone is asking for nude pics and thinks ur gay. They r probably just laughing their asses off at u right now”
“r u reatrded theres like a million parodies u reatrd”
Yeah... the Brains Trust this ain’t.
Now, this is where I have an issue with Google, trying to big up YouTube – and other social media sites – as marketing tools for regional companies.
Bearing in mind that the culture of comment in the Middle East is virtually non-existent, how do you think a smallish local company might react if it posted an innocent, perhaps slightly amateurish vid on YouTube, and then received comments along the lines of:
“lol wut you fucken towlhed pusssys i bet u et shit hahahhahaha rofl fuk u”
It’s not going to go down well, is it?
When I put this point to Kuffash, he reasonably replied that YouTube users can remove or even disable comments on their videos, and suggested it was always better to know what people are saying about you.
This may be true for companies large enough to have full-fledged marketing departments, but when it comes to many of the SMBs that Google says it’s now trying to target, I’ve got to disagree. They’re not going to have the knowledge, expertise or thick skin required to make a go of dabbling in social media like this (although it should be noted that things like Facebook are generally more benign than YouTube).
But the problem doesn’t lie with the SMBs – no, the problem, in my view, is with user-generated content itself, and specifically the web’s obsession with letting people comment on pretty much anything that’s out there.
In a very postmodern, nothing-is-more-valid-than-anything-else sort of way, we see thoughtful pieces of work – be it articles, videos, whatever – being commented on by utter drongos. In fact, there’s even a name for said drongos’ willingness to let the world hear their witless drivel: the Dunning-Kruger effect.
It’s neatly illustrated by this quote from Bertrand Russell, which appears on the Wikipedia (yes, yes, I know) page for the phenomenon: “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
Back in 1999, when this study was published, it was just a rather patronising hypothesis – but thanks to the wonders of the internet and its commentards, I think we can safely say we have much more supporting evidence to back it up.
In short, I think the time has come to reassess the web’s obsession with “add your comment”. As web users, we now have so many options to share and add our thoughts on a particular item or topic, from Twitter to Facebook to our own blogs, and whatever else comes along in the future.
I’m not for a minute suggesting we get rid of comment-culture altogether – certainly when it comes to things like news, there’s a good argument for people adding their thoughts. But does it have to be on the same page as the original story? And does it have to be unfettered by moderation or legal considerations?
I would say no.
When it comes to marketing, especially in this region, filled with sensitive souls as it is, I would say that, many times, there’s no particular need at all to allow comments on a lot of content. Users can still contribute in other ways – why do they have to be able to leave their witless bleatings on your shiny site?
I’m aware this may not be a hugely popular opinion in some areas – but, sod it, I’m going out on a limb.
Feel free to leave your comments below. Ahahah.
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