Source:TOI
Theoretically, it is not impossible to pre-screen user-generated content. Many websites do it. Most news sites, for example, have a system in place for readers ‘ comments. To read and approve each comment, they employ dedicated staff.
However, applying the same rules to the web in general and websites like Facebook that are humongous, is not possible for two reasons. Mahesh Murthy, founder of Pinstorm, a firm that manages brand image in digital space, explains: “Facebook has seven million users a day and Twitter around a million users a day in India. Let’s assume a Facebook user makes an average of three comments a day on the system and a Twitter user makes one. This alone gives us about 22 million comments a day, or about 660 million comments a month to monitor and censor. That is at a peak speed of over two million comments an hour and over 500 comments per second. It is not humanly possible.”
The system of moderated comments, wherever it’s been applied , also introduces a time lag. This breaks the flow in web conversations that may be acceptable in a top-down communication between a reader and a news website but will not work with Facebook wall posts or tweets.
The more practical way to monitor and “clean” the web of objectionable content is through keyword-based filtering and monitoring . This is the system used by countries that have the internet , which is termed ‘Not Free’ by Electronic Freedom Frontier.
Categories: Asia, Science and Technology