Web 2.0: “It Is The Race To The Bottom”

And, in this case, the bottom may be literal. Today, the New York Times reports on new video-sharing, YouTube sites that do not restrict much content and sure don't police their users.

"Where do the young thrill-seekers go?

Increasingly, to new Web sites like Stickam.com, which is building a business by going where others fear to tread: into the realm of unfiltered live broadcasts from Web cameras."

And you know what's going to be going on on that site. I am a social Libertarian and believe information wants and needs to be free, but there is a certain point at which I think we don't need anymore webcam sex, especially from teens. Or will we only start thinking that way when some teen kills himself on one of these live feeds? The pornography of the self trudges on with these video-hosting companies primarily interested in turning a profit.

When are the gurus of the Web 2.0 going to get their minds around the fact that with the ability to unloosen mankind's lust for information and booty there comes an ethical charge to deal with what youths can access? I am not sure how far that charge reaches and parents sure have a big part to play in all of this, but maybe it's time for the industry to start creating a code of ethics and industry standards that can address this with something other than window dressing.

I know many will interpret what I just wrote as an invitation to censor the Net because if all information and data aren't free then all information and data are effectively censored. That's bullshit. Keep in mind that free speech protections, to use a real world analogy, do not extend to libel, threats of harm and sedition. I have to keep that in mind when I do my job--that there is a scope to what I can get away even with the vast protections of our First Amendment. Why is the Web 2.0 world seemingly immune from such considerations?