Stall The Ball

I have noticed a few sites are hosting a button for irrepressible.info, a button that displays random messages and or links to other sites. What struck me about this was that it is entirely possible that this button displays a message that you completely disagree with.

It is run as part of Amnesty International so we can expect them not to have a tag reading “Kill all firstborn female children at birth by strangulation using the umbilical cord”. But it could and you wouldn’t know unless you were looking at the site at the right time. What about if it complained about Ireland and not being allowed to see how paedophiles are treated in Irish prisons? All of these examples are unlikely, but if you aren’t watching your site constantly how do you know that they aren’t being diplayed.

Follow up:

What are the risks using a tool like this where you can’t guarantee that the sentiments expressed will reflect your sentiments. In many cases you will never know what is being extolled on your site.

If someone posts a comment on this site I think is offensive or even disagreeable to me, I have the right to delete it and possibly leave a stub explaining why it was deleted. But with an automated button I don’t have that option. Suppose Amnesty is pro one item you absolutely abhor but otherwise generally reflects your views. Should you work on the law of averages?

I’m not having a go at Amnesty here; it’s the idea of unattended messages that worry me. You could argue that adsense from Google and all the other types of pay-per-click advertising has the same risk. But in general these aren’t personal and or political beliefs being shown. And the reputable ones are pretty scrupulous in making sure that they don’t put anything offensive on your site. The difference between them and the Amnesty model is that you are dealing with a company that wants to make a profit and needs to have customers. If Google hosted ads saying “Vote x, y or z” they would soon find their revenue stream in trouble. Amnesty on the other hand doesn’t’ rely on that model.

Are you comfortable that there will never be a message on that button that you disagree with or worse a sentiment that you would find objectionable being displayed? If your site is hosting it then as far as anyone viewing it is concerned, you must support the message.