IP Democracy: Blogging Guidelines Could Help Protect Free Speech

The New York Times’ Brad Stone has this thoughtful piece about the blogging guidelines that have been floated in the wake of Kathy Sierra’s widely publicized decision to back out of a speaking engagement due to threatening blog comments and photos. Tim O’Reilly got the ball rolling by posting suggested guidelines, and Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales reiterated them on his blog.

The “Bloggers Code of Conduct” basically calls for civil discussion and asks bloggers to assume responsibility for the statements that appear on their sites. It also allows bloggers to delete comments, bar anonymous comments and privately chastise those who violate the “civility enforced” standard. Some bloggers have embraced the Code while others say it smacks of censorship.

Robert Scoble, who stopped blogging for a few days to show his alliance with Kathy Sierra, likens the Code to a hardline theocratic regime. “As a writer, it makes me feel like I live in Iran,” he says in the article.

Although it’s tempting to view any attempts to curb speech as censorship, a privately floated voluntary code among bloggers doesn’t violate anybody’s right to free speech. Such a code constitutes peer pressure, perhaps, but it doesn’t take away anybody’s right to speak. It might, at worst, force some writers to jump through hoops (set up their own blogs that are not in accordance with the code, for example) to get their points across but that’s a far cry from what the Mullahs do.

Only if such a code were to become law, enforced by the government, would it represent a real threat to free speech. In fact, the code could ward off government involvement in the blogosphere by spelling out social parameters, discouraging the kind of activity (death threats, for example) that attracts the interest of authorities, politicians and lawmakers.

In other words, self-regulation is a far better alternative than government regulation, an admittedly distant outcome right now but one that could become all too real if things get out of hand.

“Any community that does not make it clear what they are doing, why they are doing it, and who is welcome to join the conversation is at risk of finding it difficult to help guide the conversation later,” said Lisa Stone, who created the guidelines and the BlogHer network in 2006 with Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on April 8, 2007 10:56 PM to IP Democracy