[okfn-coord] WhoKnowsWho @ the OKF (confidential)

Fri Dec 11 15:07:51 UTC 2009

Sounds like some serious legal advice is required before OKF takes on  
any kind of exposure to this.

On 11 Dec 2009, at 14:13, Rufus Pollock wrote:

> Dear All (sorry to clog up people's inboxes!),
>
> I am writing to seek guidance from the Board on an important question.
> I think we shall need to discuss this at next week's board meeting but
> any comments in advance would be appreciated.
>
> Some background: In a previous email I mentioned that 4IP had some
> interest in OKF being a home for some (public-interest) projects that
> did not sit well at Channel 4. They had one particular project in
> mind: http://whoknowswho.channel4.com/. This was built by people at
> http://www.tui.co.uk/.
>
> On Wednesday I had a call with Neil (Tui's founder) and the main chap
> behind WKW (seemed incredibly nice on the phone!). They are looking
> for a home for WKW outside of C4 and outside of TUI and we discussed
> possibility of coming to OKF. I should emphasize they want to continue
> actively developing project but want a formal home/website not
> associated with them or C4 (doesn't fit with their image/brand and is
> restricted at C4 due to broadcasting regulations).
>
> Project would seem to provide an excellent fit with the OKF philosophy
> and Apache-like structure and model and it appears a) project would be
> able to fund any associated infrastructure b) would be high-profile
> and interesting.
>
> Only concern is that project is potentially politically controversial
> and, more seriously, may raise libel issues. More information on this
> can be found below.
>
> ### The question for the board
>
> Should we consider accepting this project into the OKF Network? If so
> should we take steps to insulate it from the Foundation? (A disclaimer
> along the lines of ISP liability? Having it owned by a separate
> company limited by guarantee? etc).
>
> Regards
>
> Rufus
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Neil Aberdeen <neil at tui.co.uk>
> Date: 2009/12/10
> Subject: FOAF2 - The Map of Power
> To: rufus.pollock at okfn.org
> Cc: Matt Robinson <matt at tui.co.uk>, Russ Hendy <russ at tui.co.uk>,
> Graeme Crowley <graeme at tui.co.uk>
>
>
> Rufus
> Good to talk last night - hope we get to meet next Wednesday - you
> should come to lunch. We're at 47 Greek Street, Soho, W1D 4EE
> I know you asked me to jot down our perceived issues, threats and
> other concerns relating to FOAF/WhoKnowsWho/ whatever we decide to
> call it. - here they are in long-winded cinemascope:
>
> Facts in FOAF
> FOAF is built from facts - facts are substantiated and verifiable by
> reference to sources. Not all sources are equal, which is the start of
> our problems. Problematising facts has been a post-modern past-time
> for anyone who has lived through the raging global export success of
> French theory, but we are comfortable with the crude materialism that
> some facts are trustworthy and some are less so. We are seeding FOAF
> with facts from Theyworkforyou and Wikipedia and intend to use (less
> open) data from Companies House. Another source of facts will be from
> OpenCalais analysis of news feeds. OpenCalais will help us change news
> documents into data. A major issue for us in automating the process is
> disambiguation - how can we be sure that the entity (person,
> institution event) identified is the right entity for that entry? We
> intend to use crowd-sourcing (people) to help do this work. We also
> have some sophisticated proposals about how we might use OpenCalais to
> help disambiguate. However, clearly things can and will go wrong...
>
> When things go wrong we need to be able to act promptly to correct
> errors or take down false information. We may only plan reactive
> moderation. This is a risk from the point of view of false even
> libellous postings especially because the main part of this next
> iteration will be to open up the database to the public. Registered
> users will be able to post facts (with substantiations) and also make
> connections between new and existing entities. Whether or how these
> posts and connections are moderated is something we are actively
> considering. Facts will be contested by those who are subject to this
> involuntary Facebook process. For instance someone might post:
>
> In 1987 Tessa Blackstone was made a Life Peer under New Labour
> http://www.cracroftspeerage.co.uk/rolls/peerage/lifebaronesses.htm
> Dame Tessa Blackstone became New Labour Secretary of State for
> Eduction and Employment in the first Blair administration 1997-2001
> http://www.theyworkforyou.com/peer/baroness_blackstone
> When she left that post she became Vice Chancellor of Greenwich
> University http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessa_Blackstone,_Baroness_Blackstone
> http://www.gre.ac.uk/governance/senior_staff/vice-chancellor
> Greenwich is the historic home of the Navy
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Royal_Naval_College
> Vosper Thornycroft built the Navy's surface fleet until subsumed into
> BAE systems in 2002 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT_Group
> Vosper Thornycroft plc won the competition to run Education services
> in Greenwich under the Government's Building Schools for the Future
> programme http://www.vtplc.com/Media/Pressreleases/VTGROUPSIGNSCONTR1/
> Dame Tessa Blackstone currently sits on the board of Vosper
> Thornycroft plc
> http://www.vtplc.com/Whoweare/Managementteam/BoardofDirectors/
> Dame Tessa Blackstone is Dame Tessa Vosper Blackstone
> http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?search=ap&npgno=6157
>
> You can see that these are verifiable facts but threading them
> together produces a narrative with an implication. How far we draw out
> implications is something that we constantly debate and we're not
> decided on our strategy but PR companies and lawyers acting on behalf
> of the rich and powerful may not want these factual connections to be
> published and may try to use British libel law to gag or otherwise
> subvert transparency.
>
> There is more complexity in the way intend to enable bloggers and
> others to embed and augment the maps of connections on their sites -
> we have to consider how those connections contribute the main site -
> we don't want to restrict use but we need to make sure that
> unsubstantiated connections and facts do not pollute the public
> resource.
>
> Essentially we believe that facts will be contested, Our response to
> something that is provably false will be to take it down, it is our
> response to something more attenuated, or less securely substantiated
> or just implied that that causes us concern and we are still
> considering in terms of how to take appropriate action. Threats
> include:
>
> An uneducated but public-spirited user might draw libellous
> conclusions from a source
> A vandal might make spurious claims and make their source something
> inappropriate
> Spammers could link to their products with real or auto-generated  
> content
> A group could make actionable claims about people they're opposed to
> A group could make false claims about people they support
> A group could overload the site with so much trivia that it drowns out
> the pertinent facts and drives users away
> The author of a source may object to its use on the site, particularly
> if someone uses it to support a fact that they disagree with.
>
> Apologies for wittering on at length.
> Best
> N
>
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