Deleting discussions...closing discussions...deleting comments - is it ethical?

The more I am involved in social networking writing contributions to various sites, the more I am increasingly aware of the ethics of deleting other people's comments, closing a discussion to comments, or deleting an entire thread/post/network.

Right now, there are literally thousands of ning.com networks, and some of them have tens of thousands of members. The members can spend hours per week or even entire days preparing and posting blogs, comments, opinions, original ideas, creativity, research etc. They can develop close frienships with long, complicated email histories in private conversations, and they can also upload their pictures and videos to contribute.

Now the scary part. The network creator can delete the entire network with the click of a mouse. Years of contributions can be erased in a second by the Network Creator. Its not entirely easy to do by accident, it would require forethought, but, for example, if a network was taken over by someone other than the originator of a network, the content would all become jeopardized.

Slightly less scary but also worth considering is the fact that on most blog posts, the OP (original poster) can delete the discussion. For those of us familiar with how the internet works, quite often an OP's statement ends up merely being a catalyst for what turns into a very deep, involved conversation that will invariably involve countless man-hours of research, writing, proofing and posting, not to mention emotions. Friendships can often start or end in a thread, and people can have their world views altered or completely changed. Its big stuff!

Further along this line of thinking, OP's can generally delete individual comments as well. This exists obviously as a way to prevent spam, but it is also a very dangerous form of censorship, as the OP can spuriously delete dissent while allowing flattering comments to remain to alter the perception of the OP's message.

What do I propose to solve this? Well, a partial solution might be that a general feature be added internet wide to sites that emails your comment or an entire thread to you if your comment is ever deleted. This could get tricky for the case of an entire network, but might be OK if every thread you participated in was sent to you do on the deletion of an entire network.

There could be a standard on the web like the IEEE or some kind of best practice for social networks where you as a contributor are guaranteed a certain set of rights and can hold certain minimum expectations. Your contributions will not be deleted without your express permission could also be a solution. These would be difficult and time consuming to implement. Alternatively there is the concept that wikipedia.com offers with the history, which also seems very elaborate but seems to work in terms of ensuring everyone's say continues to exist (albeit hard to find in a massive list of historical versions and unsearchable)

Also, being able to close a discussion to new comments in context seems highly unethical, because then anyone who may disagree or enhance your statement, or even clarify for accuracy, becomes muzzled by the OP. This is not the mark of a civilized society, and truly seems like a form of oppression and censorship.

I feel as the social networking revolution takes over, new ethical dilemmas will come along that we as a species will need to grapple with and solve to ensure our collective rights and efforts are protected vigorously!

-Ryan Cameron, the Code HandyMan Feb 1, 2010