I read an article by Murray Whyte over at the Toronto Star that talks about Adam Fuhrer, a twelve year old, who has massive power within the Reddit community. It raises interesting discussion about the internet's anonymizing effect and how this allows anyone to build up power - regardless of age.

    Its a pretty interesting article and raises an interesting question. Should we be concerned about social news networks? With a social news network there is the possibility for a certain segment to voice louder than others - minorities can be squashed out or unrealistically draw attention to a very minority cause. If one has ever spent a few weeks (or monthes) on popular news sites such as Slashdot or Digg. It won't be long before you recognize how greatly the demographics of the user base determine the news story.

    My personal subjective observations have noticed the extremely anti-religion and anti-Microsoft stance of Slashdot. It seems that Digg is more open to religious perspectives (mainly in the comments on articles, rather than the actual articles) and also heavily pro-user rights (e.g. "piracy" freedoms).

    So, should this be disconcerting? In a sense, yes. Its disconcerting that individuals who may not be representative have the power to represent themselves as authoritative for a given community. On the other hand, this describes the nature of the current media. While both liberals and conservatives rant about the unfairness of the media, it is worth noting that the nature of the media is essentially the same as that of social news. A small number of individuals can determine what attracts the attention of the individual.

    Granted, we may feel more secure in being directed to news by adults in their thirties, forties, and fifties, etc. than by pre-teens; but the essential nature of the beast is the same. One must guess that this will be a self-correcting beast. If things become too skewed towards one side one will expect another social news network to sprout up that reflects a different viewpoint or demographic - just as there are different traditional media outlets reflecting various viewpoints.