44
The Forces Driving
Online Reputation
The Internet has turned reputation on its head. What was once
private is now public. What was once local is now global. What was
once fleeting is now permanent. And what was once trustworthy is
now unreliable. These changes are explained by the way that the
technology of the Internet has shaped the people’s interaction with it.
Understanding the unique relationship between technology and
culture online is key to understanding how to manage your reputa-
tion online. Failure is certain for users who apply offline techniques
to their Internet reputation or who use offline assumptions when
dealing with online problems. Instead, savvy users must understand
the technical and cultural differences between the Internet and the
offline world in order to effectively preserve and improve their repu-
tations online.
CHAPTER
45The Forces Driving Online Reputation
A Brave New World for Reputation
The Internet is not like other forms of communication. The Inter-
net is not a phone, a radio, a TV, a newspaper, a magazine, a bill-
board, or a bathroom wall. It is entirely unique: it is simultaneously
the largest soapbox in the history of soapbox speeches, the largest
library of human knowledge ever created, the biggest party line
chat in the history of conversation, and much more. Unlike any
medium that has come before it, it offers powerful, global, instant,
interactive communication equally to everyone, no matter how
young or old, no matter where in the world they are located, and no
matter what they have to say. Everyone can broadcast, and everyone
can listen.
Thanks to the Internet, we now have more power over one an-
other’s reputations than at any point in history. Average everyday
citizens have the power to create or destroy almost anybody’s good
name. But, fortunately, the Internet has also given people the
power to monitor, manage, and improve their own reputation, in a
way never before seen. Understanding the technical nature of the
Internet is the first step toward monitoring and managing your on-
line reputation. The technology of the Internet is dramatically dif-
ferent from the offline world: it allows anyone to publish anything
instantly and globally, it is easily searched, search engines don’t
know or care if something is true so long as it is popular, nearly
everything online is permanent, and disparate audiences are
thrown together in a way that doesn’t often happen in the real
world.
Leading scholar Daniel Solove’s groundbreaking book The Future
of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet goes into
great depth explaining the massive impact of this digital revolution
on personal reputation. He examines both the digital causes, many of
which are discussed in this chapter, and legal and social factors that
can help mitigate the destructive impact of these changes.
46 Wild West 2.0
Everyone Can Create, and
Everyone Is (Almost) Equal
Everywhere you look on the Internet, you can find content written by
other everyday people like yourself. The industry calls this “user-created
content,” and it appears to be the future of the Internet. In the early
days, much Internet content was written by professional journalists and
large corporations. This “top-down” model of publishing featured a few
trusted content creators who spread their message to many readers.
Today, user-created content is king. Profit-oriented websites like
Facebook and Reddit have discovered that it is cheaper to let users
create their own content than it is to pay writers and editors to write
and edit it. As a result, countless “Web 2.0” sites rely on users to cre-
ate the content that other users will view. These sites range from blog-
ging sites like LiveJournal and Blogger, to online encyclopedias like
Wikipedia, to news aggregation sites like Digg, to short-message sites
like Twitter (used for content as banal as “I’m eating a cheeseburger”
and as meaningful as political commentary in 140 characters or less).
Everyone Can Create
The result of the Web 2.0 revolution is that everyday people now can
create online content that can be viewed by millions of people. It is
possible for anyone to set up a free online journal or blog with just a
few clicks. An online journal can hold any kind of information, rang-
ing from family photos to political thoughts to gossip and scandal. It
is entirely up to the creator to decide what to write on the blank slate
he or she is given. This immense power is given to anyone, and it is
up to the user to decide whether to use this newfound power for
good or for evil.
Similarly, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of sites that fo-
cus on discussion and chat. These “forums” and “bulletin boards” usu-
ally allow users to read messages left by others and to post their own
thoughts in response. Often, discussion sites are organized around a
larger theme (like a particular sports team), and allow users to create
47The Forces Driving Online Reputation
smaller discussions (“threads”) about a particular topic (such as the
role of steroids in sports). Any user can post any message, subject
only to the whim of the website owner. The result is massively mul-
tidirectional conversations about every topic under the sun. To just
paraphrase one short list of topics, it is possible to find discussions
about parenting, painting, the playoffs, the Partridge Family, Picasso,
Proctor and Gamble, Portland (Oregon), Portland (Maine), and
myriad other niches. There is probably a discussion group for any
identifiable interest. And, even if there isn’t, many forums have “off-
topic” sections where anything else can be discussed.
The owners of Web 2.0 or discussion websites may choose to
moderate discussions by deleting offensive content, or they may sim-
ply choose to let users set their own standards. Moderation is time-
consuming for site owners; everyone has a different idea of what it
means for something to be offensive (consider, for example, the con-
troversy about depictions of the religious figure Mohammed in a se-
ries of editorial cartoons), and moderation decisions frequently lead
to more bickering and debate among users. As a result of the diffi-
culty of moderation and the natural tendency of humans toward
scandal, some user-created content has a tendency to devolve toward
the lowest common denominator. Gossip and scandal attracts atten-
tion, online and off, and there is a strong temptation for site owners
to allow (or even encourage) users to discuss scandalous topics in or-
der to attract more traffic, which usually leads to more ad revenue.
Unfortunately, some users take this freedom and use it to spread
gossip, to attack other people out of jealousy or spite, and to repeat
misinformation. And, unlike the tabloids of yore, website users often
don’t limit themselves to discussing celebrities and public figures.
The open publishing model of Web 2.0 is the first ingredient of the
sometimes dangerous online mix.
Everyone Is (Almost) Equal
To the extent that everyone can create content, everyone is equal. For
just a few dollars, anyone can purchase her own “.com” domain name
48 Wild West 2.0
and create a website with almost any conceivable content. Such a site
would be visible to users around the world, just the same as sites
made by major corporations. There is absolutely no filter on what
people can create: someone could make a website claiming that the
moon is made of green cheese, and someone else could create a web-
site claiming that there is no such thing as 3-D space.
1
Unlike most print media, any website can be viewed millions of
times by millions of different people. Print distribution is extremely
limited; each person who takes a copy of a print message effectively
destroys one; to reach an audience of millions would cost hundreds
of thousands of dollars in printing costs alone (not to mention the
lead time required to coordinate such an effort, the shipping costs
such an effort would incur, the staffing that it would take to handle
a million pieces of paper, and more). Simple websites that don’t in-
clude video or extensive graphics almost never exceed the limit of
their Web hosting contract, allowing any website to become popular
overnight and to reach a massive audience, perhaps even before the
site owner realizes it.
Of course, just as in Animal Farm, some online publishers are
more equal than others. Most major corporations have websites that
look substantially better than many personal blogs because major
companies can afford professional designers and artists. And most
Web users have learned to associate professional design with profes-
sional content; a site that features tacky design and rudimentary nav-
igation will often be considered amateurish or untrustworthy. But
even that advantage of major sites is limited. It is possible for a
skilled designer to mimic the elements of a well-designed site or for
a less-skilled designer to outright copy the design of a different site.
The ease of copying substantially cuts the design advantage held by
major corporations and organizations.
There is no inherent bias within Google (or within most search
engines) in favor of large corporate sites or sites that favor the old
media establishment. The Google algorithm doesn’t appear to have
any opinion about the difference between the New York Times and
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