I heard a great episode of Search Engine on CBC radio this morning; it started with the idea of an internet bill of rights (to be continued), and then goes on into the details of an outstanding story about how an internet community caught a car thief (using bulletin boards, photo sharing, youtube, and even ebay). While people often see the virtual world and the real world as starkly separate (one being for losers and one being legitimate), this story shows the intersections of the two both in healthy, positive ways and also in quite disturbing ways. The show then goes on to an equally fascinating story about the main editor and protector of Hillary Clinton’s wikipedia page. Wikipedia is often demonized among librarians, educators, and the general public, and this story, the story of one editor with one particular interest, is timely and interesting. He explains how he does and doesn’t control the fate of what’s on that page, how people constantly try to vandalize the page, and he and his fellow committed editors keep that page accurate, and how their edits are vetted by others. Anyone can edit wikipedia pages, but it also follows that anyone can keep them fair and accurate, too. The show then ends with a short bit about net neutrality by Cory Doctorow.

The CBC has gone all interwebs lately!

You can hear this episode of Search Engine here:

http://odeo.com/flash/audio_player_tiny_gray.swf Click to listen.
To subscribe to the podcast using Itunes click here.