In the last post about artist Thomas Hawk trying to wreck the online reputation of Simon Blint (a director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) I referenced Jeremiah Owyang's quote: "Bloggers with large social media platforms are incredibly powerful, and must recognize the long term impacts of their actions."
Which got me thinking, why isn't there a blogger's code of conduct?
After all, thanks to Google, even a blogger who has a handful of readers can have an impact on someone's image, without giving it much thought.
Recently, for the first time, I was exposed to some mocking online comment about a story I issued. I can't say I enjoyed the experience. Partly because I handled it badly, and partly because of the subsequent crowing and gloating I saw on Twitter and blogs.
I’ve chosen to post online, so I appreciate it comes with the territory. But it did give me a (very, very small and localised) sense of what it must be like to be at the receiving end of blog / Twitter chatter, once people start piling in and the word starts spreading.
And if you don't have much of a digital footprint then a few choice remarks and posts can quickly become the first thing people see when they google you (Jeremiah Owyang estimated that Thomas Hawk's comments about the SF MOMA's director now occupy 9/10 of the first search results about him).They are more or less permanent, even if they are unwarranted. In the Blint / Hawk example, an offline dispute has been brought online and unless he has a really thick skin I can't imagine Simon Blint has been unaffected by the fact that easily hundreds of thousands of people will have seen Hawk's comments about him.
It's a little a bit like putting a 'kick me' sign on someone's back, but attaching it with super glue.
If we had a voluntary code of conduct, any employer, client, journalist or whatever doing a search could immediately filter out any comments where a blogger hadn't adhered to basic principles of fairness.
O'Reilly's guidelinesUnsurprisingly I'm not the first person to have thought of this - eighteen months ago Tim O'Reilly published a series of guidelines in response to some harassment of fellow blogger Kathy Sierra (which was fairly serious and included death threats).
It resulted in a bit of media pick-up, had it's own wiki...and then seems to have petered out.
Which is a shame, as his principles (which I paraphrase here) should really be common sense, namely:
1 - We take responsibility for everything that's said on our sites, including comments
2 - We won't hide behind the web to say things we wouldn't say face to face
3 - If someone has an issue with something we've written, we first try to address any grievances personally, before letting it play out online and in the comments section
4 - If we see someone else acting unreasonably through posts or comments we tell them - privately at first (see above)
5 - We don't allow anonymous comments. Everyone has to have a verified email address
6 - We ignore trolls (people who try to wreck the discussion by being deliberately inflamatory)
Following discussions with bloggers, these seem to have been added to and they now include:
Publishing guidelines of what's allowed and enforcing it, keeping our sources private, deleting comments when they go beyond the pale, doing 'no harm', "think twice, post once" (which reminds me of an old boss I had who would write shouty emails, but file them in draft for an hour before revising and sending - good advice btw).
A year on, Jemima Kiss in The Guardian picked up the theme again when writing about research conducted by lawyers DLA Piper. Among web consumers, over twice as many (46%) thought that bloggers should sign up to a code of conduct than those who were ambivalent (15%) or strongly opposed (4%).
A key to being taken seriouslyThe lawyers who commissioned the survey said that there was a need for this due to the wildly mistaken perception that a lot of offline laws don't apply in the online space. Which is of course false, as evidenced by the recent case where a London businessman received £17,000 ($34,000) in damages when someone else deliberately set up a fake Facebook profile and pretended to be him.
Legal issues aside, I think it's important for two reasons. First of all, it's a matter of decency. With power surely there has to come responsibility (and btw that's not the same as saying you need to censor yourself).
Plus most journalists are at least on paper committed to the idea of fact checking and giving people mentioned in a story the right to comment. Which leads to the second point of being taken seriously.
Sure, we can wave about loads of stats about the growth and influence of blogs, but whenever I come up for air I'm struck by how many people (including marketers on the client side) still dismiss them as the personal soap boxes of people with a bit too much time on their hands...to the extent that even people I know who read them, swear they don't!
Limiting free speech?In the Guardian story, more bloggers were against a code of conduct (34%) than for (32%), which I can only assume is down to issues of free speech. But really there should be nothing in Tim O'Reilly's points that would cause too many people a problem.
If you want to maintain an online rant fest, nothing (except laws of libel) prevents you doing that. A lot of people will still come to these and will find them entertaining, but you will know what's what when reading the relevant posts.
Sure, there are then issues of whether a voluntary code is bit toothless and if not who policies this (one of the many problems I have with PR spam lists for example is who plays 'God' as it were).
But it seems to me a win / win situation all around.
It's a symbol that the sector has grown up. It's a recognition that people won't be dragged down or abused online needlessly. It gives everyone who signs up extra credibility, which we're all after.
But most importantly, it's simply the right thing to do.
Photo - Extraface
Update: Jack Schofield at The Guardian posts an update on the Thomas Hawk / SF MOMA saga.
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9 comments:
Couldn't comment to the brand post, so just wanted to make a small correction. While I think Jeremiah Owyang is terrific, I don't think you can attribute the coinage of "brand jacking" to him. A quick search on Google shows a mention in Business Week May 1, 2007 linked to a MarkMonitor study (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2007/tc20070501_555089.htm).
That's a fair point Marc, and I will correct it later on. An illustration of how half truths circulate online as I actually picked up this point from 1-2 other sources!
Which is funny because Jeremiah addressed that in his post on spreading the news of the Toronto propane plant explosion...that he is careful about what he forwards, tweets or blogs about because the web requires careful evaluation (http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/08/11/tracking-the-toronto-explosion-on-twitter/).
Absolutely. Anyway, the point is I should have checked it as I agree, we need to think more carefully about what we post online and tweet / forward. All corrected now.
Dirk, excellent post. I am torn though over whether I think the blogger code of conduct is a good thing or would even be possible.
One problem is the old "tragedy of the commons" ... for every online writer who swears an oath to behave, another 10 or so are willing to pile on with vitriol and muck up the green.
Another, less simple solution is to recognize that web communications tend to be self filtering. There are obnoxious sorts who look to stir up trouble, but if they are ignored they tend to go away and look for victims elsewhere. The recent NYT bit on "trolls" pointed out the whole juice for bullies is to get a rise out of a victim. The trick is not rising to the bait.
Anonymous commentators or blotters who toss verbal grenades usually end up looking like fools. If I ever manage to write something that causes angry comments, I feel proud -- because that means I've struck a nerve.
So the path I would suggest is to write with honor, take the code invisibly, and don't expect anyone else to follow. If you lead with character and intelligence you will eventually attract the right others.
ps You seem like a decent sort, so I'll be glad to help you kick any Twitter trolls' ass. :)
Thanks Ben, if there's ever a Twitter rumble, you will certainly be the first I call!
In all seriousness, I briefly cited a 1st hand experience as it gave me pause for thought. If I was stung over a relatively trivial matter, what must it be like when people really go to town?
In this space we wax lyrical about the wisdom of the crowds, communities, super fans, influencers, etc etc etc. But this can take on a much less benign tone.
At it's most extreme (for example in the case of blogger harassment which caused Tim O'Reilly to produce his code), the wisdom of the crowd can actually become the ugly face of the mob.
That's especially so if you have your own collection of ditto heads willing to go out and bang the drum.
This sector is self filtering, but only for people who have an awareness of it. An employer googling a candidate might not understand which sources are credible and which aren't, and as part of a 2 min search probably won't bother to find out.
I kind of think even signing up to a charter like this acts as a filter. For sure, some will sign up and still post without thought (or in Thomas Hawk's case post with thought as he knew what he was doing).
But for most it will at the very least act as a statement of intent, that though you don't get it right all the time, you do at least try to act responsibly.
A very eloquent plea for self regulation Dirk, but I agree with Ben that this probably won't work.
For one thing, a lot of individuals in this sector aren't actually as decent and thoughtful as you obviously are!
Let's be honest. What those people you speak to about blogs think is in part true. Just go to the comments section on the Guardian's otherwise excellent'Comment is Free' site.
What you find there (and there are countless other examples) isn't a discussion. It is shouting by people with the most extreme opinions and the most closed minds.
I reckon this issue will only be ironed out as the sector matures. I notice you've previously quoted Arianna Huffington's remark about the future being a hybrid one combining the best of the old and new worlds.
She is probably right, but we will have to wait a while until we get there.
Thanks for this--I think I agree, although a year ago I didn't believe any discussion of blogger/online codes of conduct would matter. (for the record--I was not part of any ideas/discussions around this although my situation was the catalyst for Tim's initial calls for it.)
Things are changing, though. 1 year ago I asked a group of hard-core tech leaders for a show of hands on how many felt it was appropriate to moderate and/or delete comments. A few weeks' ago in a similar conference with the same people, I raised the question again. The difference between last year and this was dramatic--this time nearly all hands shot up without the moral/ethical struggle they'd felt before.
I don't know exactly what has changed in the last year (although I have some wild-ass theories), but this was a MAJOR difference. More and more people are finding that comment moderation/deletion supports and encourages free speaking, not the other way 'round as was previously argued.
Cheers.
I really appreciate you stopping by and commenting Kathy.
Perhaps what you are saying implies that when Tim O'Reilly published his guidelines it was just too early, but the time could be right to resurrect them?
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