HoS Editorial on Blogs
Yesterday’s Herald on Sunday Editorial was on blogs, titled “Big Blogger is watching – and spewing inarticulate filth”.
The editorial is not online, and I only heard about it when Russell Brown critiqued it at Public Address. Go read what Russell says, as I pretty much agree with him.
The editorial in full is copied after the break on this post. I hope HoS don’t mind this stretching of fair use provisions, but I figure they won’t mind the target audience being able to read it online.
Now I should acknowledge that the editorial did say nice things about this blog (and Public Address):
Operated the right way, blogsites offer and generate intelligent debate and insight. The likes of kiwiblog and publicaddress are worthwhile reads, maintained by a dedicated group of talented writers and thinkers.
That’s a decent comment to make, especially as last year the Editor and myself exchanged a couple of pretty testy e-mails over the Mick Jagger and the reporter story. Incidentally I’d like to know where this “group” is. I’m the sole writer here, and occasionally even a thinker!
Taking other parts of the editorial:
But most bloggers _ and we’re talking 95 per cent _ are fly-by-night, gutless wonders who prefer to spit inarticulate venom under inarticulate pseudonyms.
As Russell noted, 95% of bloggers only blog about their travels, their pet cat etc etc. Most blogging is personal. Now even if one just looks at political bloggers, not that many are truly anonymous. Of the 50 or so regular political bloggers in NZ, I would know the identities of well over 40 of them. Maybe over 45. The CYFSWatch Blog is rare in terms of being totally anonymous.
With regards to that blog, I agree that it goes too far in soliciting names and personal details of individual staff, plus the language of some of the posts are extreme and nasty. However I would not be as quick as the HOS to dismiss all the contributions to the site. There are some compelling cases there. Even if CYFS was near perfect and got it right 95% of the time, that means there will still be a fair number of families where the wrong call has been made. Maybe the HOS could ask some of those who posted to the site to contact one of their reporters, and have the reporters check into their stories?
The editorial calls Google “extraordinarily hopeless” for not deleting the site. Even putting aside the futile nature of such deletion (it would be back in minutes), I wonder why anyone would think Google is trained to judge what is a breach of New Zealand law? You see what is defamatory under NZ law might not at all be defamatory under US law (much harder to win there). And I don’t think it’s a good idea that Google yanks content just because there has been a complaint. That is how the Scientology cult suppressed information on them for so long.
The editorial goes on to say:
Online abuse is now rampant in all parts of New Zealand society. Disaffected employees and students can now publicly pull apart their bosses and teachers through specially designed websites. Police have had to be called in to dismantle claims made on sites such as bebo. Police were also called in this week when a schoolgirl spat on the West Coast was thrashed out on several websites set up by the students.
As the Internet grows, the uses it is put to grow – both good and bad. And there is no real evidence the bad is anything but sporadic. For one case of bullying on bebo, there are a million happy users. For every ratemyteacher.com there is a ratethisrestaurant.com type site which is undoubtedly a public service. And anonymous criticism is not new to the Internet. It has been present on Usenet, the Internet discussion newsgroups for well over a decade.
At the end of the day blogs are just a form of technology that allows you to maintain an easy to read website easily. How people use blogs will always vary as with any medium. One can do good or do harm with them. Or, as is more likely, just keep posting photos of your pets to them!
BIG BLOGGER IS WATCHING _ AND SPEWING INARTICULATE FILTH
GEORGE ORWELL DIDN’T quite have it right in his classic _ it’s not so much a case of Big Brother hovering over us, as Big Blogger. In this internet age, anyone, anywhere can be transformed into an instant publisher _ tapping out their thoughts, ideas and stream of consciousness in a full-strength, defamatory onslaught, and all achieved behind a curtain of anonymity from the comfort of the home or work computer.
Operated the right way, blogsites offer and generate intelligent debate and insight. The likes of kiwiblog and publicaddress are worthwhile reads, maintained by a dedicated group of talented writers and thinkers.
But most bloggers _ and we’re talking 95 per cent _ are fly-by-night, gutless wonders who prefer to spit inarticulate venom under inarticulate pseudonyms. It is simple for them to launch their writing careers _ figures released this week show the blogger.com website is among the 20 most popular sites visited by Kiwis.
These bloggers, operating under their own misguided belief of self-freedom rarely research any offerings and have little knowledge of defamation laws and other publishing restrictions. Journalists, broadcasters, columnists, and politicians are common targets _ and this week we’ve seen the boundaries stretched intolerably far.
A new blogsite set up to name and shame Child Youth and Family workers is a disgrace. Working for CYF would be a godforsaken job at the best of times, without having a bunch of cyberspace cowboys on your back. The defamatory claims posted on the site are reckless and untrue _ many of the issues have already been investigated through the correct and proper channels, and all we’re left with are the incoherent ramblings and personal attacks of the disaffected. The very fact that CYF had to be involved in these people’s lives in the first place should sound alarm bells.
The Ministry of Social Development has tried to convince Google that the site should be removed, but the internet giant has been extraordinarily hopeless. It makes all the right noises about prohibiting defamatory, vulgar, harmful and threatening content _ but its blog pages are awash with this very material. It needs to pay more than lip service to this principle.
Online abuse is now rampant in all parts of New Zealand society. Disaffected employees and students can now publicly pull apart their bosses and teachers through specially designed websites. Police have had to be called in to dismantle claims made on sites such as bebo. Police were also called in this week when a schoolgirl spat on the West Coast was thrashed out on several websites set up by the students.
Constable Rose Green said bullying was taking on new forms. “Texting is rife and this is one step further. Crikey _ it used to be on the toilet wall. It’s gone to texting and now the websites. It’s ridiculous. It’s got out of hand.”
Some of these bloggers need to be reined in, and quickly. The anti-CYF site would have probably disappeared into a cyberspace black hole had it not been for all the publicity. Instead, the site was hit by thousands.
It would be refreshing to see a hapless victim take on a blogger in a court of law _ and earn themselves a decent payday.
We’ve yet to see a full-on case locally but when a silly blogger tries to take on the might of a government department, they might just find its legal resources are a little deeper than the average social worker. Already Crown Law and police officials are involved in the CYF matter.
Companies such as Google might also then start to take their responsibilities a little more seriously, given the liability they would face.