EFF Legal
: I finally got around to reading through the EFF legal guide
for bloggers. This was widely linked to when it first appeared about a
month ago. I should have found time to look over it over last week,
when I was reviewing the FEC's hearings on internet communication (Web
logs largely) it would have fit well with that discussion. The EFF has
put together a liability gloss that's bound to be useful to most web
loggers with separate sections on intellectual property, online
defamation, media access, and workplace issues. There is also a
companion site that is documenting cease and desist letters, the
rich man's glock 9, and their effect on the Web log world
Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.
My own feeling about this is that no matter what you write about
standards of behavior are going to tighten up a little, even a lot.
Which is to say there will be standards of behavior. The blogsphere is
not simply a loosely jointed version of the newsgroup world, or heaven
forfend the modem bulletin board world. It is far bigger, more visible,
more mainstream. It will find itself expected to live into the norms of
the outside world not the norms of a compartmented subculture.
The mental model I have for Atomized jr. is that it is a
conversation between citizens, free to assemble, quietly in small
groups, to talk about life culture and views. Of course my mental
model also includes a bunch of people in the back looking around and
saying "hey I thought there was going to be free beer and ice cream
here, not some idiot droning on about nothing." It is this sense of
public/private conversation that informs my sense of ethics, and at the
same time, causes me to see the difference between this manner of
reporting and journalism proper being merely a matter of degree and
extention. The informality of web logs disguises the reality that it is
speech to a crowd rather than just conversation among friends,
no matter how rigorously you structure your writing to one form or
another you should see you have responsibilities that mirror to some
degree those of professional writers; like columnists or
journalists. I have no use for anyone who insists on anomynity. A
nom du blog to protect ones privacy from a hungary world is one thing.
Indulging in behavior that requires it, is another. Defamation of
others, not disclosing relationships with the campaigns or businesses
one writes about are certainly in that latter catagory.
11:58:29 PM  ;;
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