Hi folks -- John Panzer blogged this, and it's come up in conversation a couple of times here at the ICWSM conference, so I thought I'd mention it:
Kathy Sierra, who blogs over at Creating Passionate Users, canceled a conference appearance this week after receiving death threats on her blog and perceived death threats on other people's blogs [content warning], in anonymously posted entries and comments.
Since I'm supposed to be listening to presentations right now, I haven't been able to take an in-depth look at this, but, honestly, from my outside view, it looks like a battle of high school cliques (the freaks and geeks battling the cool kids), except it's taking place amongst the A-List bloggers, with some bits of disturbing imagery and threats of bodily harm.
Oh, and the police have been called.
(It could also be the revolution eating its own. I'm not sure.)
And, since it's among A-Listers (who love talking about themselves), it's the top item on Techmeme right now and has hit BBC News.
Sides are being taken, accusations are being hurled and rebutted, and a lot of folks are making self-righteous hay.
I'm not going to lay out a full chronology (since I don't know it), but there was a group blog, meankids (it's been taken down), followed by unclebobism (now suspended), which is associated with Chris Locke (who responded to the allegations), one of the principals of The Cluetrain Manifesto.
A certain groups were pitted against another group. Nasty things were said. Now this.
Father of blogs Dave Winer has weighed in, as has Doc Searls; ValleyWag has a contrarian opinion; here's BlogHer's Lisa Stone -- basically, anyone who's anyone in the blogging world is taking the opportunity to weigh in.
Now, the thing that gets me is that, as many of us know, this kind of crap happens all the time. In my role as Journals editor, I've heard many stories of people who went private or deleted their blogs because of aberrant behavior by people (both known and anonymous).
But all of a sudden, it hits the so-called A-List, and suddenly people are falling over themselves railing against anonymity, calling for boycotts and codes of conduct, and throwing "the solution for hate speech is more speech" out the window because it's one of their own.
All because of some poster, who may or may not be sociopathic and who may or may not be associated with other A-List bloggers.
Obviously, if there's a crime here, it should be investigated and prosecuted. But this is not new (have these people not ready any red/blue blog battles lately?), and just because it's occurring in a prominent and insular community doesn't mean it's more important and more deserving of attention than if it happens to the rest of us.
I don't have a stake in this battle (though I'm pretty solidly in the "anti-death threats" camp), but I think some folks need to take a deep breath here.
If you've had your own run-in with anti-social blog behavior (as either victim or aggressor), please feel free to leave a comment -- however, if you try to use my blog as a platform for personal attacks on someone, your comment will be deleted. I'm just saying.
Thanks -- Joe
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12 comments:
Priviledged people do not perceive it as such, and I think they tend to take these kind of things, and threats especially, very seriously. Whilst they were really detached from the masses before, the blogs have penetrated everywhere in every house and universities and it seems that there is not much boundaries now between the lay people and the masters. I think Scholars or People of some kind of importance in one particular field feel threaten by this lack of distance between their position (who felt safe and protected before) and another's they don't even know but can access everything today. I think the blogs especially are a challenge to those who used to hold all the knowledge and science before and perhaps have started to dimystify the higher positions of some. Before it was difficult to have knowedge or access it, today we can grab it with a click, speak to who ever with another click. Knowledge is not creating differences anymore between people of different social classes; I think it is not wanted anymore because it is now accessible, so, what left is to be admired on those on their pedestal? so easily scared, aren't they? Power and its war is back.
I might have just said only rubbish. It's late for me here. Enjoy your conference; you sound as you are having a laugh.
Valerie
http://journals.aol.co.uk/iiimagicxx/surreality/
I must be way out of it because I have no idea who these people are. There are mean hateful people everywhere. Delete and block as you and John have always told us!
I agree. It's old news and apparently not something anyone takes seriously until it happens to THEM.
That's among some of the weirdest reading I've ever done. Making sense of it was a project in itself. I don't know if I give it much merit, because I'm thinking anyone who's a serious criminal might not take the time to photoshop bad pictures. But, who knows.
That was some trail of links to follow. When I got to the "Kat Herding Media" blog, I called it a night.
Deep breaths are definitely in order.
Jimmy
I read Kathy Sierra's blog, mostly for her entries like this one: User Community and ROI. That was her previous update before this occurred.
As far as the fight goes it's typical with an exception.
A web 1.0 author vs a web 2.0 author. Each used differing methods to get the others attention. One choose the anonymity web 1.0 route while the other responded with a very public web 2.0 appeal for action.
So far it appears that web 2.0 method of a very public address to a perceived wrong is winning. All the anonymous authored were blogs deleted with many of the participants making awkward public statements or public apologies for their anonymous excesses.
This raises an interesting question, though. If one gets a disturbed and disturbing blog comment from a stranger, what is the best thing to do about it? Aside from deleting the comment, of course. - Karen
People believe in the anonymity of the Internet. They believe that if they make a fake Yahoo! e-mail address, and post awful comments on people's blogs or message boards, that their identities are secure. Aside from the huge naivetee this displays, it also makes a pretty piss-poor statement about the nature of the beast. Basically, if we think we can get a way with it, we'll try it. And that's wrong.
-Paul
http://journals.aol.ca/plittle/AuroraWalkingVacation/
After I read this entry, I came across another one at a blog I read regularly that I think says it all. Read http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2007/3/27/2839254.html
-Paul
The key is not mean comments, clique fights or biting sarcasm - it's the threats of violence. Those are illegal and therefore the police were called. I don't know who's responsible for it, and for the larger discussion, it doesn't matter. It matters a lot to Kathy and her personal safety, but this episode has brought to light the predatory and mysoginistic behavior that women have to deal with online - something that's been going on for a long time and should be discussed and solutions found (if there are solutions to find).
The thing that gets me about this story is that it reflects our continued idolization of the celebretaunte. These are people who have no real claim to fame or prestige other than their simple fact of existing (think Paris Hilton) and the world becomes either amoral or righteous when somehting happens to them. It's absolutely inane. I'm with you, Joe. Where was this righteous indignation when one of their readers had to go private or stop blogging due to similar creepy behavior?
People on the a-list really need to get a hold of themselves and acquire a little perspective and all us D-listers need wake up and realize that the only thing dumber than a stupid celebrity is the ignorant fan that creates the hype.
If any West Coast bloggers come off at the lip about Monponsett, I'll drop Shook Ones Pt. 3 on that ass before I have them murdered at the Source Awards.
Team Monponsett plays hardball. 'Spect that.
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