Technology, Anonymity and Social Norms

My apologies for not posting more frequently.

I have been working on an important project the last few months and have not had the time to post.

That said, I could not resist posting on this topic!

Did anyone read the story in today's New York Times, "Tale of a Lost Cellphone, and Untold Static", about a guy who successfully tracked down and shamed a woman who had refused to return his friend's lost cell phone?

Basically, this guy's friend left her cell phone in a cab. The cell phone somehow found its way into the hands of a young lady. When this guy tracked the cell phone to its new "owner" and attempted to get her to return it, she refused, so he set about publicly shaming her via the Internet.

This brings to mind two other recent cases: a New York woman who used her camera phone to photograph a man who exposed himself to her on the subway, then shamed him on the Internet; and the case of a person who's pet soiled a subway car and refused to clean it up, who was also publicly shamed via the Internet.

If my memory is correct, Larry Lessig once postulated that there are three kinds of law that govern human behavior: physical laws, i.e. Gravity, etc.; man-made laws, i.e. Stop at a red light, and social norms, i.e. Donate to your Church, etc.

Lessig argued that, for the vast majority of people, code was akin to a physical law in the sense that it was absolute in its nature leading to what he believed would be a tyranny of code.

Anyway, the interesting thing here is the increasing incidence of this third type of constraint on human behavior: social norms, via technology.

A Yale Law School professor, Robert Ellickson, once did a famous study on ranchers in Shasta County, California. Among other things, his study showed that in many contexts, social norms, rather than formal laws, were used to guide (and constrain) behavior.

Historically, people have argued that while social norms may work in a small community where everyone knows each other, such a system would never work in a large city where people are more anonymous.

Apparently, technology changes that.

All three of these cases occurred in New York City, a city with over 8 million inhabitants!!!!!!!

I am writing this between meetings so I don't have time for a more thorough analysis but it seems to me that one of the obvious conclusions is that technology not only shrinks the world but, conversely, expands the size of the community, making it easier for this third type of constraint on human behavior to work.

Like Lessig's fear over the possible despotism of code however, this kind of vigilante justice--shaming via social norms--raises important questions.

What if the woman who posted the photo of the flasher accidentally photographed the wrong man? What if someone posted a photo and it was a lie?

None of the formal protections that we have carefully built into our man-made legal system: due process, innocent until proven guilty, an impartial jury of one's peers, etc., are in place to protect people who are subject to condemnation via social norms.

One thing you can be sure of: as technology continues to proliferate the incidence (and risk) of this method of governing human behavior is going to rise!

Comments

[Marc]

Dear Simon,

Imagine what would tagging people in the real word (via cell phones) do in terms of making the community transparent! and thus enforcing social norms even in the largest cities.

I wrote about it as you may have seen on my blog.

I have complex feelings about the idea. But will it be made by some startup? You bet! I had people from IBM linking to that post and while I don't think IBM would be behind it I believe it (the idea) has been lurking in people's subconscious for at least the last few years, since Friendster started with its social networking paradigm. I simply brought it to the surface, and it wasn't even me that did that, but a reader of my blog who made the comment at random. So the idea is definitely out there and it will change the social model in the real world such that social norms will be followed more closely.

Obviously, it could be scary to some people. Someone already commented on it in their video podcast.

Having said that, this type of idea is so viral in its nature that it carries the risk of being cloned by 1000 startups the minute it gets out there, with several people already working on such a system. So there has to be a wait and see, and learning from the early entrants, as execution in this scenario is infinitely more relevant than first mover advantage.

I just think it's interesting to watch and learn from those who will be first to try it, especially as I find the idea itself capable of adding more transparency to society which would enforce social norms, but only if the execution and timing are perfect because the stakes are high with such ideas.

Just my $0.02

Marc

[Marc]

With respect to moral/ethical implications, I believe the technology can be tamed.

An improved tagging method including the use of user-behavior-based weighing factors can lessen the potential for harm and increase the benefit to society.

The moral bottom line I take for grante because I believe society will always find a way to steer itself in the direction of the common good.

Marc