There has been a lot of furor over the disclosure guidelines recently put forth by the FTC. On a personal and professional level it really makes no difference to me. All you have to do is click the Transparency link in my sidebar and you’ll see a full disclosure for the website and then additional case by case ones on individual posts. I always advocate transparency both in my own work and to my clients.

That said, I think that while the FTC guidelines may seem a fine idea at first I don’t believe they are. First and foremost is the fact that no print media, or its extended presence on the Internet , is subject anything like these rules. Double standards are never a good thing, especially in legal matters.

Then there are the free speech issues inherent in a double standard applied to news and information. Chris Crum on WebProNews has a nice post about it, including this bit about the stance taken by the IAB:

The IAB [Interactive Advertising Bureau] says the rules unfairly and unconstitutionally impose penalties on online media for practices in which offline media have engaged for decades. In an open letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, Randall Rothenberg, the President and CEO of the IAB, called the FTC’s distinction between offline media and online media, “constitutionally dubious.”

“What concerns us the most in these revisions is that the Internet, the cheapest, most widely accessible communications medium ever invented, would have less freedom than other media,” he said. “These revisions are punitive to the online world and unfairly distinquish between the same speech, based on the medium in which it is delivered. The practices have long been afforded strong First Amendment protections in traditional media outlets, but the Commission is saying that the same speech deserves fewer Constitutional protections online. I urge the Commission to retract the current set of Guides and to commence a fair and open process in order to develop a roadmap by which responsible online actors can engage with consumers and continue to provide the invaluable content and services that have so transformed people’s lives.”

Net Neutrality and freedom of speech are fundamental underpinnings of the modern Internet. We are in the midst of the greatest revolution in the access people have to information since the advent of movable type. Even though it will not affect how I operate it is still of massive import to all of us who work and write on the net.

Mr. Crum points out another valid point in another article of his:

Well-known author/editor/publisher Jeff Jarvis makes a really good point. He says the FTC assumes that the Internet is a medium. “It’s not. It’s a place where people talk. Most people who blog, as Pew found in a survey a few years ago, don’t think they are doing anything remotely connected to journalism. I imagine that virtually no one on Facebook thinks they’re making media. They’re connecting. They’re talking,” he says. “So for the FTC to go after bloggers and social media – as they explicitly do – is the same as sending a government goon into Denny’s to listen to the conversations in the corner booth and demand that you disclose that your Uncle Vinnie owns the pizzeria whose product you just endorsed.”

That really is the core of the matter here. Social media platforms are arenas of conversation. This sort of regulation, besides being unenforceable, is supremely out of place.

If you do reviews or any other form of blogging that involves brands or products you might want to check out DisclosurePolicy.org, which is what I used to generate the one you see on this website. It’s a quick, free, and easy tool to use and will help keep you on the ethical side of transparency no matter which way this is resolved.

What are YOUR thoughts on the issue? Let us know here or on our Facebook Page!

George “Loki” Williams is the owner of SocialGumbo, LLC

One of the first voices I ran across when I started to test drive Twitter was Ari Herzog. He was all over the place it seemed. I had already been familiar with some of his work on Mashable and the Huffington Post, and found his thoughts on transparency to quite interesting.

At that time the Presidential election was looming and every Internet channel imaginable was humming like a Tuvan throat singer. Twitter’s infamous Fail Whale was sighted frequently and links, snark, and political data were inescapable.

As the Obama campaign showed us, the Internet has now had a direct and massive impact on our nation’s political process. Ari has been staying at the forefront of the intersection between social media and government, or Gov 2.0 for some time now. Recently he kindly agreed to share his views and knowledge (and a great cookie recipe) with us in the following interview (conducted via email).

In His Words: Ari Herzog is the principal of Ari Herzog & Associates, providing online media strategies for business and government. Leveraging 10 years of experience in information technology, community journalism, and government administration, Ari uses a holistic approach to explain why it is important to embrace the social web, focusing on different, customized approaches for every client. For instance, every company does not need to blog and every PR firm does not need to tweet. By the same token, every company needs to blog and every PR firm needs to tweet. Confused yet? Ari can help you cut through the Web 2.0 clutter.

The author of AriWriter, where he provides strategies and tips on social media and online marketing, Ari is also a guest writer at the Huffington Post and Mashable. He created the Twitter Fan Wiki for U.S. Government in August 2008; and recently started working part-time for Social Media Today responsible for blogger recruitment, front-end programming, and management for the Sustainable Cities Collective and Governing People online communities. You can follow him on Twitter, FriendFeed, GovLoop, and a host of other social networking sites.

Loki: Since Gov 2.0 is your focus would you share your perspective on extreme transparency as applied in a governmental setting? How important is total transparency as a goal? What do you see as the largest obstacles to implementing it?

Ari Herzog: If you rewind time to January 20, 2009, the first White House blog post was written by new media director Macon Phillips, where he expressed President Barack Obama’s commitment to the tenets of communication, transparency, and participation. Macon wrote, “WhiteHouse.gov is just the beginning of the new administration’s efforts to expand and deepen this online engagement.” Recalling Obama’s campaign platform, one of the items he planned to initiate was the ability to enable citizens to read, review, and offer feedback on non-emergency legislation. Three months later, that has yet to occur, despite many bills across the Oval Office desk. From my perspective, there are three major obstacles:

1. outdated infrastructure, e.g. the White House received legal approval to use GMail email addresses in lieu of official dot-gov accounts.
2. outdated or nonexistent policies, e.g. the Department of Defense has no policy on social technologies, despite military branches and Pentagon agencies using such tools.
3. lack of streamlining across government agencies, e.g. some departments are blocking access to Twitter while others allow it; or some departments use Google Analytics to track web statistics, while others use WebTrends.

The case study I frequently cite is South Korea, where 11,000 emails are sent annually to the mayor of Seoul and he personally replies to each one. The city also offers free internet training classes to improve citizen participation; and provides online learning through podcasts and video-on-demand. Government meetings are streamlined online and across TV, and citizens can interact in real-time. Should I add that every Seoul citizen can pay taxes online, and their e-taxes are stored on government servers for five years?

How about Singapore, where an internet system called SingPass enables every citizen over age 15 to use one username and one password to access 50 government services?

For a U.S. example, you may enjoy reading an interview with Dave Fletcher, the Chief Technology Officer for the state of Utah. Among the state’s best practices are 800+ online services, a 24×7 chat session, and blogging employees. Last fall, Utah became the first state in the country to close Fridays, due to the online engagement.

Loki: Would you tell our readers a bit about the Twitter Fan Wiki of U.S. Government that you started last August, and any subsequent projects that have grown out of it? What other resources of a similar nature would you advise for those interseted in Gov2.0?

You know, politics is something that I keep off this blog as a general rule. The main exception being looking at the implementation of web 2.0 at the governmental level. This time I have to make an exception because it is all tied together by social media.

Our *ahem* flamboyant Mayor is known locally for the extreme opacity of his administration. Repeated controversy has dogged his footsteps since the levees failed. His latest faux pas is of a distinctly digital nature and came to me via @MayorNagin on Twitter, a faux persona that has had all of New Orleans in stitches for months. Always ready with a dose of black humor tied to the latest Nagin media disaster.

(The reference to branding relates to Nagin’s infamous comment about the incredible murder rate here “keeping the New Orleans brand out there.” )

@MayorNagin – It’s just a part of my re-branding–getting rid of the e-mails, that is. Wait to you see the new 2.0 me. http://tinyurl.com/c4oumg

The news article linked above will take you a disturbing case of deliberate and possibly criminal opacity on the part of Mr. Nagin’s administration.

Via NOLA.com:

Orleans Parish Civil Court Judge Rose Ledet delivered a stinging rebuke to Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration Tuesday after learning that virtually all of the e-mails sent and received by Nagin last year and much of the information on his 2008 calendar have been erased in an apparent violation of the state public records law.

Clearly disturbed by the revelation, Ledet ordered the Nagin administration to immediately halt the practice of “destroying correspondence” by the mayor and members of his executive staff.

So in true Carnival fashion we go from satire to disturbing truths and worrisome events. @MayorNagin is a pure expression of the New Orleans spirit in that regard. It is by lampooning the dire events around us that we derive the strength to carry on. It is always the court jester wo is able to speak truth to the king after all.

So from satire on Twitter to a digital records scandal involving government emails. It’s sure been one Internet based day here in the Crescent City. People with an interest in things of this nature should keep an eye on the story, the treatment of public documents be they paper or virtual is important to all of us. Especially when coming from an administration that runs a month and a half behind on public records requests (legally they have three days) while publicly claiming radical transparency.

George “Loki” Williams is the owner of SocialGumbo, LLC

Photo: Karen Apricot | License