Metadata that kills by Peter Brantley.
From the post:
Recently I was advising a friend who works at a not-for-profit that distributes ebooks to underserved populations around the world. “Is there a way,” she asked, “to limit or select what portions of an ebook catalog are displayed to readers in one country versus another?” Was this an issue of rights, I wondered? “No,” she said. “In some countries, particularly for women, being caught reading the wrong book can have mortal consequences.”
It was a poignant point which caught me flat-footed. This is not a hard technical problem; depending on the distribution platform and reading system, title masking is not difficult. But it hadn’t occurred to me that metadata — or the lack of it — could quite literally translate into the death by stoning of a young girl brave or foolish enough to read a forbidden book. This is a world where there may need to be an ebook catalog for open societies, and another for countries in which the lives of women, for example, have no value.
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A great read where the consequences of your choices may be paid by others. In full measure.
Puts a different spin on the knee-jerk insistence of no restrictions on free speech at all.
Certainly relevant to what content you would include in a topic maps based upon its likely readership.
I’m in the no restrictions on publications whatsoever camp, but, I’m not willing to have others to pay for the consequences for my choices.
You?