The Wall Street Journal reported on the news that Thailand lifted its ban on YouTube. The reason for the previous ban? Someone had posted videos that are offensive to the monarchy. The ban was enforced because Google refused to take down the videos. The site is now up and Thailand’s minister of information claims that “the site operator agreed not to run video clips that violate Thai law or are ‘deemed offensive’ in a reference to the monarchy”

Whether or not Google agreed, the ban, the threat of criminal prosecution and the subsequent lifting of ban all brings to focus the impact politicians can have in shaping our digital world.
It is easy to claim that current mobile video phones, fast mobile networks and YouTube (or its clones) work to “democratize news”. But as long as the policymakers can use the threat of legal action to shutdown anything that doesn’t fit their view of the world, the true democratization will be slow to unfold. The reality is that a powerful Government can either shutdown YouTube in their country or resort to arm twisting to remove content. They can say, when it suits them, YouTube be Gone!

While I am all for democratization, I also do not think we all fully understand the impact on our privacies when everything we say or do in the school, work or street can end up in YouTube. While the Governments have this power, what are the options available to Joe Public who wants YouTube to remove some of the videos that are invasions of their piracy? Or should we just take to heart what Scott McNealy one said, “You already have zero privacy, Get over it!”

I’ve been thinking about Jason Calacanis’ criticisms of his Facebook experience. Jason has pointed out some limitations of Facebook. Facebook was not designed for people trying to maximize their audience – it was designed for people to communicate with people they know.

Jason complains about having to process thousands of friend requests. Not only have most Facebook users never faced this problem – they never will. The problem is specific to audience-maximizers. Where there’s a problem, there’s a solution: if audience-maximizers want to accept all friend requests, they could outsource the acceptance process (hire someone to click the accept button). Sure, it’s the equivalent of hiring someone to manage your garden. I enjoy a well-manicured garden, but the gardening does not sit high enough on the priority list for me to do it myself. Alternatively, Facebook could provide an option to automatically accept all friend requests.

If Jason would prefer to limit his use of Facebook with only those he actually knows, he could keep his account private from searches (or maintain a second account only for use with those he actually knows). I feel that would provide him with the experience Facebook attempts to offer.

I do agree with Jason’s feeling that the Facebook experience can be a bit overwhelming. When life is so busy as it is, am I really expected to be interested in so many details in the lives of my friends/acquaintances? Do I really want to know every time they install (and immediately uninstall) an application? I see the overwhelming nature of excessive data points as an opportunity for better aggregating and prioritizing of information. The order I read email does not appear in the interface. I want to sort by sender, but not alphabetically – I want to sort by how likely I am to want to read something from that sender.

Interestingly, Jason’s comments on Facebook share two posts with comments on comments (by others on Jason’s blog). I expect that once he’s feeling better, Jason will find solutions to the problem of unwanted comments. Again I think the solution lies in tools for prioritizing information beyond chronology. He could require authentication from commenters, enabling him to programmatically reject comments from those he disapproves. Alternatively, he could crowd-source the problem, allowing readers to provide feedback on comments for the purpose of filtering (digg-style). Or, he can keep comments off his blog, pushing the conversation elsewhere, along with the content and traffic.