Many countries, including America, are now considering putting censorship regulations on blogs and punishing bloggers who violate these terms. Those who support the censorship of blogs are spinning this practice by saying they want to impose a ‘code of conduct’ on bloggers. This comes about since many of these online journals have become increasingly nasty in recent months. In essence, blogs have become a virtual edition of your high school’s slam book.
While many bloggers take shots at the people they write about, and even sling the insults back and forth to each other, do they really need to be censored in this manner? Blogs are essentially online versions of a diary, where people have the opportunity to say whatever is on their minds about any subject that they want. The problem is that people are starting to use blogs as news sources, and while many talk about the day’s news, they should not be used as news sources because they are opinion pieces. Blogs are a great way to understand how people feel about something that is going on in the news, but they can’t be taken as facts.
There are many types of blogs, and because of this, they cannot all be held to the same standards. How could you impose a code of conduct on a high schooler’s livejournal? These online journals were created so that young people, and others early adapters to the Internet, could have a forum where they could express their emotions to the world, or just to their friends if they choose. This place where they can talk about anything is bothering them, or what is going on in their lives. We should be encouraging teenagers to air out their feelings in a healthy manner before they blow up unexpectedly. Blogs are a great place to do that because people can read it and can try to understand what is going on in their lives.
Another type of blog is one that is tied to an organization or company. I believe that there should be some kind of regulation for these types of websites, because they do represent the company. These regulations should be internal, coming from the corporate side of the company to the blogger. The company has every right to want to keep their reputation in place, and have the right to tell the blogger things they should and should not talk about, just like they do for every other employee.
There are also bloggers who are making their entire careers by giving the public their opinion on the Internet. Many of these bloggers focus on celebrity news, but there are many who make careers out of blogging about politics, or just everyday occurrences. There are also regional blogs, such as wonkette, gawker and defamer, which discuss the goings on in Washington, DC, New York and LA, respectively. These blogs should also not have to come under a blanket code of conduct because they are all talking about different things, and they were created so that we could read about this person’s opinions about a given subject.
This subject is going to spawn a great deal of debate over the parameters of the First Amendment. How can you regulate people’s opinions? Everyone is entitled to say what is on his or her mind, and it should not become an issue unless it personally offends someone, but the government does not need to get involved. If someone has a problem with a post on a blog, then they should take it up with them, and deal with it like adults. Over time you can develop a sense for a blogger’s style and how they approach their topics, and if this is something that makes you uncomfortable, then maybe you shouldn’t be reading that blog, not making it so there have to be laws against what people can say on the internet. There are billions of websites out there, I’m sure everyone can find at least one that fits their tastes just right.
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I agree with you for the most part. The internet is one of the last truly democratic spaces we have, where anyone can get on and make a reputation for themselves through words and images alone. (I'm leaving out the fact that English skills and cable and computer access aren't necessarily available to all.) Still, I think there’s more to the issue than high school kids jonesing on each other. You mention that blogs can be an outlet or a sort of therapy for people with issues they want to talk about. It lets folks “air out their feelings in a healthy manner before they blow up unexpectedly” and it allows for others to read those reflections, “to understand what is going on in their lives”. But you also said that if you’re reading something you don’t like, maybe you ought not to read that blog. This creates a situation where the people who are simply venting receive comments from those who are feeling what they’re putting out there. In our technology saturated world where individuals are ever-more isolated, feeling understood and having your frustrations affirmed by another person can be a powerful force. This can be a good thing for what we think of as typical high school ‘I’m so lonely, no one likes me, I have acne’ type of issues. But some people, young and old alike, have passions, insecurities, and personal histories that, when affirmed or re-directed can have very real and dangerous consequences.
I recently saw a documentary about a ½ dozen or so American Muslims boys who, according to their families, were doing a lot of soul searching about what it means to be Islamic in the US. Long story short, these particular kids found answers in some fundamentalist, extremist, anti-American websites and blogs that allowed them to communicate with people who understood their frustrations and were interested in helping them to direct that energy. In other words, the kids were expressing interest in carrying out terrorist attacks within the country. These youth, all under the age of 19, are now in jail. They were caught in a sort of on-line sting. The websites were also being followed by a government official who was very much looking to understand what was going on in their lives.
I’m not trying to pick on the Muslims here. I imagine it works the same way for the radicalizing and mobilizing of white supremacists and PETA supporters. I think you’re dead-on that we have to protect the internet as a largely unregulated realm where information and ideas can flow freely. But I think we’d be mistaken and foolish to think of free expression as benign. It can be great for emotional health and critical thinking, but it can also be quite dangerous. Knowledge is not neutral and interactions are never without motive. Censorship clearly isn’t the answer, but all rights come with responsibilities. While I’m equally nervous about what it would mean to our freedom of expression to set up monitors on all our blogs and chat rooms, I do think there are risks to forgetting the consequences of think that what happens on the internet stays on the internet.
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