

Unvarnished: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place For Defamation - n8agrin
http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/30/unvarnished-a-clean-well-lighted-place-for-defamation/

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chaosmachine
So, I guess one strategy here would be to fill your own profile full of
stories so obviously fake that they discredit anything that might be true.

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gizmo
Nope, then the employer will assume you must be covering something up (which
is true) and not hire you "just in case".

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tome
Not if you fill thousands of other profiles with the same rubbish too. Then
it's a level playing field.

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petekazanjy
Again, that sort of thing will be tough to do based on what we've built. You
can't just spin up new account programattically. You have to use a verified
Facebook account with a sufficient level of activity to prove humanness.

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paraschopra
If it is the way it is now, smart people will automatically start discrediting
the site. So, I don't see a need to worry excessively.

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petekazanjy
The site is actually full of awesome content of a very productive,
professional nature. TechCrunch's headline was hysterical and designed to draw
pageviews. Mission accomplished! The conversation on Unvarnished is more akin
to what you find on HackerNews than on, say, 4chan.

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qw
I'm wondering how far you can really take it, and still be inside the
boundaries of the law?

What is the limits of stalking for example? Could we follow the life of a RIAA
lawyer and post photos and detailed description of his day to day life?

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petekazanjy
Private information that is not business related will be deleted from the
site, and get the reviewer banned. (and not just kicked off the site. Ban his
FBUID forever, such that he'll have to invest in a whole new FB identity that
passes our threshold of "humanness" before he's let in again.)

So yeah, it's not a good idea to engage in behavior that violates community
guidelines.

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deutronium
“Will you ever give users the option to take down their profile?” “No, because
if we did that, everyone would take their profile down”

I find that remark quite amusing coming from the creator.

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petekazanjy
Why do you find that amusing? The cut out the second part of that sentence
which was "everyone would take their profile down in the case they get a
negative review."

Your desire to 100% control your image does not trump the rights of free
speech that others have. For example, I can't remove any of the comments here
on this site making reputation claims about me, because it would be censoring
you. And it would injure the rights of others to consume that information.

Just because I have an interest in making everyone think that I am 100% A+
99th percentile doesn't mean I can censor you.

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thibaut_barrere
This will most likely be illegal in France (ianal, just a feeling).

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ErrantX
There is probably a counter business here: "destroy your unvarnished profile".

Either an expensive hand crafted one or, depending on their "spam" filters,
Mechanical Turk farmed.

(I can't quite describe the whole reasons but I find this particular site
wholly distasteful)

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petekazanjy
Well, this is the sort of thing that we believe persistent identity and review
graph analysis will help us prevent. We are committed to ensuring that the
content on the site is not spam or shilling, and that it remains a place for
productive conversation about professional reputation.

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jsankey
This reminds me more of Get Satisfaction than Yelp - in the sense that people
perhaps aren't even after publicity, but they can get listed anyway. Only now
it's individuals that can have their reputation held to ransom!

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petekazanjy
Correction to your point: On Yelp, you or I can add a restaurant, doctor,
dentist, whatever, to the site in order to review them.

Again, people can speak about me without my permission.

And no one's reputation is being held ransom. Individuals can claim their
profiles if they like, or ignore it if they like.

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petekazanjy
Hey folks. Sorry for being so late to the conversation. It's been wild with
the amount of media coverage we've been getting. I'll try to respond to
comments.

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adrianwaj
I wonder if underlying users get a chance to respond to negative material. At
least this site can be focal point for rebuttal. Negativity shouldn't be
feared.

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petekazanjy
Yes. That is extremely important to provide balance to the conversation. While
I can't infringe your right to express your opinion about me, I certainly do
have a right to add my voice to the conversation. Unvarnished allows profile
owners to claim their profile, respond inline to review, request more reviews
from their network, and so on.

You're right on the money about 'focal point'. Right now, reputation
conversations already happen, but they're sprayed all over the web. I don't
know who's saying what about me on what blog or what twitter stream. Moreover,
I don't know how authoritative that blogger / twitterer is, when I'm reading
claims they make about someone else.

On Unvarnished, the interests of the three sides of this conversation are
balanced: the profile owner, the reviewers, and the review readers. No one's
interests trump, but there is a framework and rules for the discussion.

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dlytle
So, am I reading this right, in that someone can create a profile for you
without your consent, and you can't stop it from appearing?

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petekazanjy
Correct. You can speak about me without my permission. We do it all the time
offline, and we do it all the time online.

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adi92
people with more friends could quickly down-vote each other's negative reviews
and write scathing reviews for whoever they wish to bully

unless they explicitly bar people below a certain age, this site will wreak
havoc in children's social lives

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petekazanjy
Actually not. Because we can see, in the backend, the reviewing patterns,
along with a variety of other tools, it's possible to discern when folks who
have likely not worked with each other are reviewing each other.

Also, the site is only for people 21+ years of age. Very good point.

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mos1
My crystal ball shows that the future is cloudy, with a chance of defamation
lawsuits.

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Daniel_Newby
Another strategy would be to write a few well-written, plausible, damning
reviews of yourself. That way you weed out prospective employers who are
stupid enough to believe any old garbage they read on the intertubes.

