Drugs, porn and Soccer Hooliganism
The price of fame. Google now has a very slippery slope to walk, having agreed to police and monitor its Orkut social networking service in Brazil (the only place it is popular).
The problem with popularity is that increasingly, activity reflects the behavior of society, which includes drug dealing and organized riots.
MySpace is undergoing a similar PR challenge here in the states. I remember in the mid nineties when the Internet=porn/email=criminal activity memme’s were floating strong in the press, which makes me think that similar hurdles will be overcome with social networks.
Technology will always be used for good and bad, but it will always be more exciting to write about social networks as drugs and sex than teenage girls endlessly pontificating on the meaning of life. That’s not to say that the former represents 2% of activity and the latter 98% though.
