Societies generally have two ways that they try to encourage “positive” or “good” behavior on its members, laws and ethics.
But while both are similar in that they are ways to punish or discourage unwanted behavior, they are radically different in both what they are and how they operate.
As a blogger, you find yourself operating in a variety of societies. This includes traditional ones such as your local community, your country and the world as a whole as well as digital ones such as the blogging community and the Internet community.
This has some fairly profound implications for the laws and ethics you have to wrangle with as you’re not only caught between the duality of the two elements themselves, but in the layers of often conflicting standards of all the societies you reach and are a part of.
To unravel this mess, we have to first take a look at the differences between law and ethics and understand how they each impact bloggers in slightly different, but very powerful, ways. [Read more…]