Q&A: Caterina Fake, Founder of Flickr

By thinksocial on May 12, 2009 | 119No Commentshttp://think-social.org/qa-caterina-fake-founder-of-flickr.htmQ%26amp%3BA%3A+Caterina+Fake%2C+Founder+of+Flickr2009-05-12+16%3A12%3A39thinksocial

CATERINA FAKE
Cofounder, Flickr

Twitter: http://twitter.com/caterina

Caterina Fake is the cofounder of Flickr, the popular photo-sharing site that helped transform the web into the participatory environment it is today. Flickr launched in early 2004, but she has been involved in web development since 1994, working as an art director at Salon.com and greatly involved in the development of online communities, social networks and personal publishing.

TS: How do you think social media has changed over the last year?

Caterina Fake: Familiarity with social media is the thing that is constantly changing as the technology changes. People always tend to be the same. So 18th century church groups, and church groups online are the same. Dating back in the day, and dating online are the same. What changes is not people or how they respond to each other but the technology. I think the thing that has changed most in the past 5 years is this ubiquity of social networking, social media, people contributing content, this effervescence of the architecture of participation. The saturation point was reached at some point in the past year.

TS: What do you think the public interest of social media is?

CF: Well Flickr for example, gives people all over the world the ability to upload photographs, or trigger things from the ground. Protests that are going on in Chile are suddenly visible to any interested party in any part of the world. It’s a liberating and freeing phenomenon.

TS: Do you think Flickr has any kind of responsibility to journalism? Do you think it has any kind of role to play in the future of journalism?

CF: We have these debates all the time. I had an extensive argument with someone from the New York Times recently who said that I was personally responsible for all of his photographic staff losing their jobs. I actually don’t think that’s true. The responsibilities of journalism are significantly greater than those of bloggers, because they have editorial standards which they live up to. With bloggers it’s all very wild and messy. And unconfirmed. Things can spread through the blogosphere like wildfire. There’s a curatorial part of what newspapers do – they actually select the news that is worthwhile and confirmed.

TS: Do you think governments have any particular responsibility to use social media or to address the issues that it is bringing up?

CF: If you want to be where the people are and they’re on social media – you go to where they are. There’s no reason to avoid participating in or using the platforms that are already existing out there for communication.

TS: What do you think the greatest threats are to the way people use social media in terms of public interest?

CF: As you would think I am a techno-utopian. I love the internet, I love all of the possibilities for online community and connecting people. But I do think when you go online a certain amount of communication gets lost. I’ve been studying this recently. People can de-personalize, de-humanize and lose a lot of the subtle meanings of things. The facial expressions, the blush response. You can type an email in your most sarcastic voice or your most gentle and kindly voice and it will essentially come across completely the same.

So social media serves only a small part of the full spectrum of human interaction and should not be relied upon exclusively. It’s very important for people to organize online, to meet each other online, to connect with each other online, to share information with each other online, but ultimately people need to see other people, they need to interact directly with other people. One of the big problems of social media is that there are people who rely upon it too heavily

TS: So you think the future of social media, especially in the public interest, is to organize and stimulate real-world interactions rather than replace them?

CF: Exactly. The danger lies in never leaving the online world. You see what I would call sociopathic behavior happening online the most repugnant things imaginable are said in anonymous blog comments and posts. That could only happen online when there are absolutely no repercussions for these actions.

TS: Would you censor that, if you could?

CF: I don’t think that’s censorship, actually. Because those people are not identifying themselves as themselves. If you are yourself online and you stand by everything you say, then I see no reason why you shouldn’t say it. But you shouldn’t be able to hide behind some mask and say amazingly offensive things. Korea is one of the most advanced countries in the world using social networking. In order to join a social network there you now have to submit your social security number. Anonymity breeds hostility and sociopathy and it’s very dangerous.

TS: So do you think that the way the Obama campaign used social media to get people out into the real world to do real things is a model for the future, or can be built on?

CF: Yes, exactly. That to me is the way social media can work in the public interest. It’s an incredible opportunity for organizing, for broadcasts, for collaboration. But there is the danger it will become circumscribed by the media itself that power for good needs to move out into the world.