Wikipedia and Social Media

I found the Common Craft video on social media to be a solid means of introducing and describing how social media works, why its necessary, and how it can be used to benefit all. At the same time, i appreciate Nicholson Baker’s article, which gives us insight as to the negatives of “freedom” and how something that’s meant to be useful and shared can be perverted into a platform for anarchy. Its a sad reflection of humanity in my opinion, and can be seen all across the world in other things. While freedom of speech is something i cherish and believe every human should have, there still is a point at which there needs to be a difference between using speech as a tool vs speech as a weapon. I’ve experienced with a business i’m close with, where people who were caught stealing went on yelp and flooded the business with negative reviews. How fair would that have been in scoopville, if people who just didnt like jarett said that his ice cream was nasty, when they’ve never had it? Wikipedia has evolved into a community of editors within the normal internet community to manage the information and keep some integrity, however, at the same time some of those people have gotten so caught up in themselves and their ability to determine what is “relevant”, that they’re suppressing the free flowing of information. I wonder if there will ever be a solution to the abuse that comes with both freedom, and power.