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The LA Times published an article on Kathy Sierra’s experience with internet abuse that was brief and included some thoughtful comments and reasonable descriptions of why things like this happen. It also included a title that is misleading. By placing the apostrophe at the end of the word bloggers as bloggers’ they imply the incident quieted the keyboards of more than one blogger without later explaining or confirming that implication. The only blogger we know of that has quieted her keyboard is Kathy Sierra. In addition, calling ‘violent posts’ a ‘hazard of the wild web’ is equally misleading. Of the millions who access the web, I’ll go out a limb and suggest the number of people receiving violent threats is a minuscule percentage.

Not that it is in this article but the repeated references on this topic calling for a code of conduct on the web is stupid. You cause more problems that will ever be solved by that approach. Those who would commit the offenses described in this story would be the last to comply while the burden placed on everyone else would only echo their success. The answer is to toughen up and if you must, rely on currently available options to oppose or respond to such activities rather than trying to invent new ones.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Abuse, threats quiet bloggers’ keyboards

A tech blogger canceled public appearances after getting violent posts, a hazard of the wild Web.

By Alex Pham
Times Staff Writer
March 31, 2007

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Public Affairs, Technology, Education, wordpress, blogroll, internet, blog, News Media, ethics, Opinion, Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.