Codes of Conduct and bigotry
p2pnet.net news:- Tim O’Reilly and Jimbo Wales believe the Net needs a Code of Conduct to keep it pure.
O’Reilly’s wrath was incurred when Kathy Sierra, a friend of his, declared herself house-bound after receiving online death-threats.
“As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference,” she said not long ago. “But I’m not. I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I’ve been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that’s not what pushed me over the edge.
“What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs… blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers. People you’ve probably heard of. People like respected Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Chris Locke (aka Rageboy).”
Can’t have that, said O’Reilly, and produced a Code of Ethics he thought bloggers should adhere to, ie:
- Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
- Label your tolerance level for abusive comments..
- Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
- Ignore the trolls.
- Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
- If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
- Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.
Wales figured he, too, could get mileage out of straightening out the Net and announced his own code.
“In the US, we are privileged to have not only a first amendment but also a section 230,” said Jeff Jarvis in The Guardian, going on:
I recommend both to you in the UK,” Jarvis goes on. “Section 230 says that as a site owner, I am not responsible for content placed on my site by others but I am free to edit it. Before this was enacted, site owners who tried to clean up interactivity increased their liability if they missed something bad, which motivated them to keep hands off and let anarchy reign or to shut down interactivity altogether. Congress wanted site owners to feel free to improve discourse, so it protected them from liability if someone misbehaves. This enables both freer and more civil conversation. Yet now O’Reilly et al suggest that bloggers should take responsibility for everything that happens on their sites. I fear this surrenders the safe harbour of section 230. It puts free conversation at risk.
More fundamentally, O’Reilly’s campaign misinterprets the internet itself. It treats the blogosphere as if it were a school library where someone – O’Reilly would do us the favour – can maintain order and control. It treats the internet as media, like a newspaper or TV show that is edited and sanitised for our protection. But it’s not. The internet is a place.
We don’t consume content there; we communicate and connect.
Say no more.
Also See:
Code of Conduct – Codes of Conduct v Free Speech, April 14, 2007
not long ago – Killing online freedom of speech, April 13, 2007
The Guardian – I’ve had enough of all this blog bigotry, April 16, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
April 16th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Well said!
RIAA, did you hear this? We are not consumers, we are your former customers.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I am on the same page as Jarvis. He’s got a good head on his shoulders when he derides O’Reilly’s lame attempt at imposing a form of censorship on blogs. The move is blatantly hypocritical given that O’Reilly has spoke out against censorship yet in the next breath he has the balls to suggest a code of conduct.
The only use for his precious code that I can think of is to use it as bum-wad.
Bianca
http://whining.weaselhut.net
April 17th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I am on the same page as Jarvis. He’s got a good head on his shoulders when he derides O’Reilly’s lame attempt at imposing a form of censorship on blogs. The move is blatantly hypocritical given that O’Reilly has spoke out against censorship yet in the next breath he has the balls to suggest a code of conduct.
The only use for his precious code that I can think of is to use it as bum-wad.
Bianca
http://whining.weaselhut.net