Yesterday brought the news that Google was being forced by a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger, who was “talking trash,” about Canadian-born model Liskula Cohen on a blog called Skanks in NYC. The blog has since been taken down, but the samples I’ve seen of the copy were truly pure trash… upped by the ante of anonymity.
In the many discussions about the role of the Internet on how we as a society receive our news, there has been much discussion about accountability and reliability. As a communications strategist, I’ve talked to many clients about the need to be more aggressive about negative online commentary about their business. The Internet has changed the rules because it makes it so easy to publish anything – true or false.
In the case of Liskula Cohen, she argued that she should have the right to sue the blogger for defamation, because the blog posts undermined her credibility and made it more difficult to get jobs. I can see this as viable. Hollywood seems to run scared at the first sign at a little controversy. Note how Michael Phelps was dropped so quickly for possibly smoking marijuana.
The larger question, however, is how accountable should bloggers be? Frankly, I have to admit to being biased. I’m trained in journalism from the University of Missouri of Columbia where entire classes are dedicated to libel and slander. One wrong fact in a news story and your grade dropped a letter – this includes a wrong phone number. So, while I like the Internet’s ability to share so much information and to bring the world to your fingertips, I admit that I’m not so fond of the anger- or hate-motivated speech that happens on the Internet.
Where is the line? And how can it be adequately enforced? Share your thoughts!
You need an editor. “liable” is spelled “libel” and the closing sentence of your first paragraph needs at the very least a comma after trash. When you go bragging about your education and in the same sentence misspell the word of topic, it makes you appear far less intelligent than I know you to be. Also you should not change tense mid-sentence as you do in the sentence that begins, “One wrong fact in a news story..” from your last paragraph.
You make great points and have a winnable argument. I happen to agree with your perspective on this.
I think that as a strategy, businesses should focus on pleasing everyone every time. Then they should go out on the internet, find the anonymous bashers, who are tops on the google list, and take them apart one by one, figuring out who they are, and calling them out. For example, if so and so blogger, let’s call him meathead1, is bashing the company repeatedly, focus on him. Find out who he is, chances are he is one of two things: a dissatisfied customer, or an employee of a competitor. If meathead1 is not a customer, he cannot be satiated. If he is an employee of a competitor, call him out for it. Tell the entire company to let him know what they think of his anonymous blogging defaming the wonderful company they work for. Encourage them to use nice words only. Start a blog that competes with his traffic and debases his credibility. It works great.
Thanks for the edits stinky cheese man!