The unintended consequences of Web 2.0 and social media

What can be done to reduce self-censorship in socially moderated media?

Forbes recently had an interesting article about the failures of eBay’s feedback system. Many socially-moderated systems like eBay’s have a significant flaw: users are afraid of stating their true opinions of other users in feedback comments, as they expect the other user will respond with retaliatory negative feedback. The end result is the majority of users end up having near perfect ratings, even if they do have a very tainted auction history, as the “social norm” becomes maintaining the status quo.

A related problem occurs on a macro scale at many socially-organized news/discussion sites (what marketers call Web 2.0 applications). If a user submits a news story which some members disagree with, that news story is voted down. After the article submitter sees this occur,
they are less likely to continue submitting news stories which are against the grain, as “what’s the use, it will just get voted down again”.

A “social norm” is therefore unintentionally established on the website which gets re-enforced over time. The enforcement of this social norm soon results in the polarization of the community, ultimately leading once “neutral” sites to become clearly left vs right politically, capitalistic vs socialistic economically, or most commonly pro-Apple vs everyone else (I’m a part-time Apple user btw).

Whether or not this polarization is actually a bad thing is another discussion onto itself. The greater question is, if you own and operate a socially-organized site, are you willing to accept the possible alienation of some of your users?

Common sense would dictate that you should try to avoid alienating your customers at all times. So what can be done to prevent social norms from developing on your social media / web 2.0 / interactive website?