Ethics in Blogging: A Normative Constraint on Excessive Economizing and Power-Aggrandizement

Blogs are interesting creatures. Like humans, they seek not merely self-preservation, but also the expansion of their domain on the internet. The empire-building does not have power-aggrandizement as its goal; rather, bloggers use what power they have to maximize the reach of their words. To be heard by as many people as possible—as if quantity were more important than quality—is a still more intermediate means, with the end being to bring one's words to the world-at-large. At the extreme, a blogger wants to see a world that has become a projection of his or her own words. Less extreme, a blogger wants to be a significant player in societal discussions even beyond the internet. Toward such ends, bloggers economize in the sense of seeking to minimize what they incorporate of other blogs beyond what they view as being useful to themselves, while attempting to maximize that of themselves that is incorporated on other blogs by power or moral suasion. For example, a blogger might say to another blogger, “I’ll blogroll you if you blogroll me.” This is a variant of “I’ll follow you if you follow me” on Twitter. As Susan Gunelius, an expert on blog marketing, observes in Blogging for Dummies, such reciprocity is no longer a normative practice in blogging. Indeed, the “I’ll follow you if you follow me” mentality is questionable at best. It implies that one person follows another not because of any value perceived on the followed’s account, but, rather, solely so he or she can be followed by yet another person. In other words, the apparent reciprocity is actually egoist. 

The full essay is at "Ethics in Blogging."

Social Media Companies: Is Blocking Political-Protester Content a Political or Business Decision?

The question of the role of social media internet companies as protesters have used social-media platforms to communicate before and during protests exploded on the world stage in "Arab Spring" going in the Middle East in early 2011. Lest it be presumed that the companies' respective policies were relevant only in terms of what content (or users) was allowed and how that content could impact events on the ground, the policies themselves reflect the claim made by the West of what liberty means. In other words, if social media companies were (allowed to be) oppressive or otherwise not respectful of their customers, the overall message to the oppressed in the Middle East could not have been that greater freedom is indeed possible because it exists in the West. Lest our own private sector unwittingly undercut the words and efforts of the protesters, we might want to use this case to ask if we couldn’t be freer too.

The full essay is at "Social Media Companies and Political Content."

On the Irrational Exuberance of a Market's Bubble: The Tech Industry

I contend that the degree of uncertainty related to the expectation of future profits in the social media companies means that that industry ought to be treated by investors as if it were in a bubble, even if it turns out that the expectations were spot on. That is to say, investors should buy in lightly, and supported by a diversified portfolio. So perhaps the question of whether the industry is in a bubble is not as vital as the media may suppose; the extent of uncertainty, which was clearly evident for instance in LinkedIn's trading at 540 times its prior year's profit, is itself a factor not to take lightly. So call it bubble or not, the difference between known and expected revenues is itself worthy of consideration, and when that difference is significant, the wise and prudent investor naturally treads lightly, even if it seems that others may make out like bandits.

The full essay is at "On the Irrational Exuberance."