On my other blog, I did a post about driving pet peeves and a close call I had on the mean streets of Toronto. I made a passing reference to the idea of “crowdsourcing” a database on boorish road behaviours. Well, it turns out there’s a website that does just that, Zapatag.com {blog, Twitter}. What is Zapatag? According to their “about us” page::
“Report bad drivers, track license plates, zap a tag and upgrade your commute. Compliment a carpooler. Lash a litterer. Tattle on a tailgater. Snap at a speeder. Bring accountability back to our streets the Web 2.0 way. Don’t get mad on the road. Get even online.”
Technologically, it was inspired by Twitter, but the more interesting implication on this blog is how such sites might affect us in the future. What about issues of::
- Privacy. Is it a breach of privacy to link licence plate numbers to alleged incidents?
- Defamation. Is it defamation to link a vehicle to alleged bad/illegal behaviour?
- Antisocial behaviours. Will this lead to harassment, in terms of posting or retaliation for posting?
One of our fellow bloggers had a disturbing incident on a Thousand Oaks, CA thoroughfare. I thought a site like this might be useful in cataloguing habitual offenders, but the technology does enable issues like those three listed above and probably more. Privacy has been declared dead thanks to the Internet for over a decade. What about defending one’s “reputation” online? Where are the lines drawn between transparency and defamatory statements? With the Internet and the decline of privacy, will the definition of defamation change? A whole post could be on the antisocial behaviours angle. What springs to mind is the cyberbullying mom case.
Invoking Bentham’s panopticon and doling out Foucauldian logics to each and every one of us {we all have the power of surveillance and voice with Web 2.0+}, will this lead to übertransparency and more mindful actions -or- will it create a anarchic free-for-all of accusations and defamation?
Song:: I Think Im Paranoid – Garbage
Twitterversion:: @Zapatag allows crowdsourcing of bad driving behaviours. It’s an interesting intersection of technology & society. @Prof_K
Comments 3
Tweets that mention Crowdsourcing the Jerk Store » ThickCulture -- Topsy.com — December 3, 2009
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Thom, Kenneth M. Kambara. Kenneth M. Kambara said: @Zapatag allows crowdsourcing of bad driving behaviours. It’s an interesting intersection of technology & society. http://url.ie/3eaj [...]
rkatclu — December 4, 2009
That site, though technologically interesting, seems to have little to no practical value other than providing a venue for peoples' [real or perceived] grievances and rants.
"Get even online" - petty/vindictive much?
ashwin — January 23, 2019
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