Comments on: Death By Blog?

By: Search Marketing Courses

Search Marketing Courses — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:04:29 +0000

I don’t think that this is just a free speech versus privacy issue – there’s also a moral issue involved. Attacking someone (publicly or privately) is a serious matter. The phrase sticks and stones may break may bones, but names will never hurt me is a naive, foolish phrase. Names do hurt, attacks do bruise. People do not want their private lives exposed to the public and that should be respected.

The exception is when there is a public need – if someone is running for office it’s important to understand a bit about his character, honesty, etc (although even then there are limits).

The fact is that gossip sells and it feels good to lash out at someone you don’t like. But money and vengeful emotions are no means by which to judge the morality of an action.

In terms of the question responsibility – I imagine there was more to his suicide then some blog posts, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t contribute (even in a small way). A small contribution to a suicide is still an awful thing.

By: Michael Clark

Michael Clark — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:25:56 +0000

For my blog at ShowBizRadio.net we’ve had several people express interest writing reviews for us. But when we inform that they have to put their real name with their reviews, they’ve backed out. They offered to use a pen name, but after talking with the faculty at my wife’s journalism school we felt it wasn’t ethical to publish critiques under a false name.

By: Trench Reynolds

Trench Reynolds — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:50:06 +0000

9 times out of 10 in these cases the ‘anonymous’ bloggers are outed.

We’ll see how AgencySpy feels when that happens.