I don’t think this is a controversial view or anything, but I’m fond of annotation. I’v written before that I think it’s a
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I don’t think this is a controversial view or anything, but I’m fond of annotation. I’v written before that I think it’s a fundamental activity in both networked culture and higher education, and we’ve certainly written about annotation quite a bit here at ProfHacker.
Tools such as hypothes.is and News Genius, along with older tools such as Diigo, allow visitors to any page to annotate that page in public. This potentially is a powerful tool for classrooms, as groups of learners can see how they each respond to a particular text. This summer, Mark’s edX course used hypothes.is as a way to explore electronic literature.
The ability to annotate “any page” has some implications, which are spelled out in part by Hypothes.is’s statement of principles:
2. Work everywhere. To the extent practical. Without consent.”
In the broader culture, it’s hard not to stumble a little over the phrase, “without consent.” On the one hand, it’s not hard to take their point: If you are trying to build “an open platform for discussion on the web,” then asking people for permission doesn’t sound very open.
On the other hand, there are also pretty real possibilities for abuse. Consider, for example, Ella Dawson’s thoughtful post, “How News Genius Silences Writers” (which I found via Audrey Watters’s newsletter):
A creator receives no notification if someone has annotated their content. Opening my post using Genius was like discovering graffiti over some of my most personal work. Annotations display more like passive aggressive Post-It notes, but for someone who has been gaslit by partners, diminished by journalists, and harassed by mobs online, Genius annotations are an invasive violation. The design itself doesn’t help in this regard. I expect line edits from my actual editor, a thesis advisor, or even a friend sharing their thoughts on an early draft; I have no established relationship of trust and respect with the denizens of the internet.
. . .
News Genius was probably created as a way to speak truth to power, but it has incredible potential to punch down. I am not a highly paid journalist at a huge publication; I am a survivor with a blog.
It’s probably worth considering how the platforms we use think respond to issues around abuse and harassment, and encouraging developers to build responsive tools.
How do you handle issues around harassment when you have students work in public online?
Photo “Annotation by Flickr user Quinn Dombrowski / Creative Commons licensed BY-SA-2.0
