At the recent annual NAGCAS conference for graduate careers advisors, I gave a presentation on how to use Web 2.0 technologies in daily careers advising practice. I provided examples of how to use wikis, blogs and podcasts to engage students in their career development learning and, naturally, a question was raised about the legal implications of posting stuff to the internet. So we got to discussing the risks associated with potential defamation and libel, with the need for release and indemnity (especially as regards recording interviews for podcasting) and the chances of getting sued . I think the bottom line was that we agreed that we need to be careful, and that we need to educate students and new users to the issues, but that, one the whole, online communities — professional and education communities, at least — are largely self-regulating and any inappropriate behaviour is soon stamped out.
I later had several conversations with some pretty web-savvy people at the conference who expressed the opinion that some of the fear around legal issues was a bit unfounded. I have to say that I agree. As I said, communities such as ours tend to moderate themselves, so the risk that anyone will say or do something that might get them sued is probably a small one, and the risk of actually getting sued is probably even smaller. I believe (hope?) that as the younger generations get older they will be less interested in litigation than we currently are and that their socialisation into the Web 2.0 environment will be one that allows them to use the common sense and sense of sharing that the new social networks enable. This isn’t to say, of course, that you won’t get some dodgy types out there who don’t know how to play and act appropriately, but maybe we can think of a future where social networking improves our communication skills and provides new levels of respect for other people’s opinions.
Am I being an idealist?
