« Social Technologies’ Futures Expedition in Shanghai Dispatch 2—Home Visits | Main | Social Technologies’ Shanghai Futures Expedition Dispatch 1—Exploring Retail »

Crowdsourcing Family Acrimony

Crowdsourcing--having masses of strangers carry out a task that once would have been handled by a specific entity--has come to family disputes.

According to the NYT, an item appeared on Craigslist in Tacoma, Washington, earlier this spring announcing that a house was being demolished, and so people were free to taken anything and everything. And they did, removing even windows, the kitchen sink, and the water heater from the unoccupied house.

Now a woman is charged with malicious mischief for placing the ad: she allegedly resented how the homeowner, her aunt, had treated a relative, and used the power of Internet-directed crowds to take her revenge.

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>