I missed this last week, but the Washington Post reported that swarms of citizen journalists are mobilizing to settle scores. Clearly this is a risk in an environment that has no editors or recourse. All the more reason why the leaders in the community should call for systems like HonorTags. Having a Wikipedia-like self-policing system for citizen journalism will help readers separate what might be considered vigilantism from actual reporting and/or opinion.
Joseph Jaffe digs into this a bit further. He's wondering if the power of blogs and more importantly, communal marketing, one consumer can bring down a mighty company (Jarvis v. Dell - 2005 might be a precursor).
