Ning and porn: Get a life, blogosphere

There’s been a small fuss brewing (not even large enough to be a brouhaha — more of a kerfuffle) around Ning, the social-networking engine run by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and the lovely and talented Gina Bianchini, and a post about how a large amount of Ning’s traffic goes to social networks based around porn. This was picked up on by Mashable and Valleywag, among others.

Marc has responded in a lengthy post at his blog, and I have to say that I’m glad he did. He takes a refreshingly clear-headed look at the issue, and says several things that I think are worth saying — including the fact that you can’t take as gospel any of the numbers that come from Quantcast or Alexa (especially Alexa) or any of the other traffic measuring firms. Surely we should all know that by now.

His other point is that Ning is content-agnostic — and so it should be. There are social networks based around porn? Big surprise. The Internet is a social network based around porn, for pity’s sake. The reaction from some bloggers has a real high-school tone to it, as though they were reporting Ning to the principal because they caught him looking at a Playboy magazine out behind the portables.

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Tagged as: andreessen, ning, porn

digidave

I thought Porn invented the internet?

mathewi

No, no, no, Dave -- the Internet invented porn :-)

Mark Forman

Yeah it seems that the web and the socnets are the haven for the petty OCD kids. Why not take Ning to task for what it's users are thinking?

Karoli

Though it doesn't really bother me whether Ning has porn or not, I do wish there were a way to separate it, similar to what Flickr does with their picture ratings. My wish to see that happen isn't so my sensibilities won't be offended, but more because I see Ning as an emerging educational tool which many teachers are warming to. Given the prevalence of the Internet and social networking in kids' lives, I'd like to see schools wrap their arms around it and integrate it in.

The problem is that school IT admins will be forced to block Ning the same way they do all of the other major sites because they can't risk the possibility of kids surfing porn when they're supposed to be learning.

I'm sure they could limit the Ning access to sites used only by their school, but my experience with school IT admins is that they tend to filter all or nothing, no exceptions. It took me almost a year to have them unblock a site I created for the high school band on it's own domain, simply because "they don't do that".

howardlindzon

obviously he knew this would happen, that's the only way this business flies :)

that freedom of speech stuff though...come on Matthew, lame veil on this one.

mathewi

Not sure I agree it's a veil, Howard.

SageRave

Separation should be enough. Unfortunately, lots of folks carry the behavior inspired by porn sites, into the general membership areas of social networks.

Each person can be responsible for their actions. There is no need to add yet another restriction on adult behavior beyond what passes for common sense and polite conversation. If everyone remembers what is appropriate and respects each other, there should be no problems..

cataspanglish

Frankly I see the uptake by independent people in the pornosphere of social media & web 2.0 to be more radical, liberating and healthy than much of the sleaze spewed out by so-called internet marketers. These indie-porn people have nothing to hide and have been freed from the big biz of yore and talk as much about tech, geekdom and general blog stuff as anyone else in the blogosphere. However they are subjected to the same moral shit as always from self-proclaimed new media/web 2.0 experts twittering on about their social dialogue...

סקס

The problem is that school IT admins will be forced to block Ning the same way they do all of the other major sites because they can't risk the possibility of kids surfing porn when they're supposed to be learning.