At a recent communication's round table event, members were pressed about their individual "gadget" dependencies (as if the devices we use are somehow responsible for the poor judgment we exhibit when using them). This is inevitably followed, almost immediately, by admissions of senders guilt (hitting the send button while still angry). Of the many lessons we are learning on our rapid march towards content globalization (some of us with more difficulty than others), is that participating in a knowledge economy requires us to teach ourselves how to successfully moderate ourselves. The indirect consequences of not doing so can be just as disastrous as the direct ones.

Ive argued before, and still maintain, that in order for our content generation to move forward, a shift in our globalized attitude towards content must take place. Knowledge capitol has value, and we are all active consumers and publishers of content that has the potential to become capitol. As the value of knowledge capitol increases, so to do the risks associated with behaviors surrounding its creation. Your online activity, to re-coin a term, is your avatar. An online personality by which you can be immediately, and in most cases, irrevocably judged. Make no mistake, a recent litigious example of a social networking heavyweights culpability in divulging the identity of bloggers is only the first step toward a mass reorientation of privacy mores online.

Efforts by governments around the world to compel social networking sites to enhance privacy measures are meant, in large part, to draw clear boundaries between the culpability of end users in moderating what they publish and those of service providers respectively. While a necessary measure, dont confuse these nanny oriented policy measures on the part of government as anything other than a commentary on our collective immaturity in governing our need to hit the send button.