IAB blog

Jack Wallington

I can’t claim to know the ins and outs, but I’m sure we’re all aware that there is an evil worm virus attacking computers the world over. It is apparently the most evilest of worms to have ever been invented and it keeps changing to make it a slippery blighter to catch. Interestingly, Microsoft is invoking mob behaviour by offering a £172k reward to anyone with a lead. It’s like Crimewatch dot com.

Microsoft aren’t revolutionaries in this regard, other companies have used the internet user base to keep other people in check for some time now. YouTube, for instance, relies heavily on the public reporting of inappropriate content. Amazon and Expedia are other examples I’ve noticed recently of self-monitored user content. The internet is too big for companies to manage the vast amount of user content and computers don’t (yet) have the common sense to pick and choose what is and isn’t appropriate.

Therefore, with a middle person to offer final judgement, employing the aid of the millions of web users seems like one of the most logical methods of controlling the internet. Indeed, the advertising industry is already adopting this method through self-regulatory bodies like IASH. Is this the way the internet is to continue moving, the ultimate form of democracy? If it is, the most important element is that middle-layer. Someone, or a group of someones, to act on the responses of the masses.

An example of the middle-layer being wrongly implemented is Wikipedia. True, there are some moderators on the site that are responsible enough, but there are a large number of other moderators that aren’t. Emphasised by the creator Jimmy Wales publicly dismissing large chunks of content on the site as inaccurate and an embarrassing episode between Gordon Brown and David Cameron over the age of Titian. Of course, Wikipedia has no real revenue stream to cover the cost of employing the efforts of a complete middle-layer. Although I work in advertising, I applaud sites that can survive without it – but can Wikipedia? I like it being free, but I would sacrifice viewing ads to enable the site to employ a decent middle-layer, thus improving its overall quality.

In actual fact, every time self-policing has the correct middle-layer, it does work. In Microsoft’s case of the worms, the middle-layer will of course be the police; they aren’t expecting a genuine mob of virtual torch wielding geeks to surround the virus creator in a massive battle in World of Warcraft. I don’t think anyway…

The point of this post is simple: people are hard to manage and managing billions in the future is going to be a little tougher. Understatement. It is reassuring to see the foundations being put in place now, at least in the UK, because in ten years time we won’t want to realise we built this house on sand.