Steve Rubel blogged yesterday…
Earlier tonight I was on a four-minute segment on CNBC that largely focused on Forbes’ new cover story - Attack of the Blogs. Registration is required or the bugmenot login/password "forbesdontbug" worked for me. The article’s author, Daniel Lyons, was in our interview group.
The gist of Lyons’ soon-to-be maligned story is that blogs are “the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective.”
I read the story and - although it is one-sided - I don’t think we-the-bloggers should be too quick to dismiss it. Issues related to libel and slander, threats and abuse are all too real. The issue has another side, of course. Some of my favorite bloggers write anonymously out of fear of economic retaliation. There are dozens of overlapping communities of bloggers who write responsibly, truthfully, and bring the force of their conviction to bear against corporate and political greed and power mongers. To the extent that the Forbes article represents an attack on freedom of expression, it indeed will soon be much maligned. But to the extent that it describes unethical and simply abusive behaviors we should value it. When the man said that the pen is mightier than the sword, he wasn’t yakking about using your ballpoint to poke someone in the eye… nor, is it seemly to beat someone about the head and shoulders with your keyboard.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Winston 10.28.05 at 9:56
Don’t know if you caught my 10/13 post commenting on Patricia Keefe’s column in InformationWeek. She said: “Blogging isn’t a license for irresponsible, slanderous, or cruel behavior. If people could just manage to disagree firmly, but politely, this case wouldn’t even exist.”
And I concluded: “Even though the concept of blogging is still quite young, it is not too early for all of us to monitor and police ourselves to minimize the liklihood of some over-zealous politician or bureaucrat seizing the opportunity to regulate our activities. Don’t laugh…the fools we have in Washington today would do it in a heart beat. All they need is a half-vast reason…”.
fp 10.28.05 at 10:17
You’re right about that Winston.
HumanityCritic 10.29.05 at 3:53
Just passing through, cool blog by the way.
madame l. 10.29.05 at 7:18
is that spam? just asxin.
fp 10.29.05 at 9:51
http://lifesrichpageant.typepad.com/lifes_rich_pageant/2005/07/lee_friedlander.html
If you take a look at the comment from July on Neil Smith’s blog, it would appear that this is indeed low grade comment spammage from the HumanityCritic. On the other hand, I’m guessing he was indeed passing by, and he left the comment, and the wierd link to the TypeKey thing takes it out of the realm of an ordinary sand spamwich.
If he was advertising Casino based Viagra Rolexes or sumpin, then I would delete the comment. Since he sort of isn’t, well… I’m glad you were puzzled by this as I was. Let’s leave it and see if anything evil happens.
memer 10.31.05 at 7:52
That was indeed a weird flyby by the HC, if indeed it was him. Kind of out of character. I know he does exist in “real” life, or at least in blogspace, but…yeah, the paranoiac in me wonders if this is the next level in spam — adopting existing personas?
You ever see me pop in here with poker/pokeher advice, please (please) delete and call the police — someone’s hijacked my brand.
memer 10.31.05 at 8:30
Forgot I can’t embed links in anchor tags here. Humanity Critic blogs at: http://nappydiatribe.blogspot.com/
RB 11.01.05 at 11:53
I would like to push back mightily against the statement in the first comment: “it is not too early for all of us to monitor and police ourselves…”
excuse me for saying so, but fuck that. it’s a recipe for volunteer slavery.
fp 11.02.05 at 6:48
’scuse me for saying so, RB, but a little self control now and then might be a good thing. And a commitment to ferreting out truth and wisdom and sharing those things is certainly a good thing. If Winston was suggesting some kind of posse bloggitatus with lynchings and all, then that would be a bad thing. Committee work is committee work after all, whether done on horseback wearing hoods and sheets, or done in a stuffy little conference room wearing corduroy jackets with leather patches on the elbows. If, on the other hand, Winston was simply suggesting a little self discipline within a common set of values, then I’m for that. Not that I want to bury the strong voices in a quicksand of norms and mores, but rather I would affirm strongly that truth is valuable, and having a good time is why we are on the planet.
So let’s set our own boundaries, and let people read us with the expectation that these are the parameters, and if we are some kind of lying snake and tool of the porker-elite like Matt Drudge, well people will see that, and if we are of sunny and rosy disposition like RageBoy, well… people will see that too and flock to bask in the reflected glow of the truth that fills us.