A Blogging Code of Honor Will Not Work

Posted on Fri, 30 Mar 2007
 at 16:02:08

     Web experts are calling for a blogging code of honor after Kathy Sierra received numerous death threats through her popular on line blog. The idea is a good one, but it would be nigh on impossible to make it work.

     The problem is that with any code like this, unless it is made an international legal requirement, is that the people who it is meant to protect against do not subscribe to it, and therefore render it obsolete. It can be enforced to some degree on on line blog communities such as Blogger and My Space, where offending blog posts can be removed, and their authors banned from the network, however for an independent blog, such as this one, any code of conduct breaches would be very hard to punish.

     This could be overcome by getting web hosts on board, this way any offending sites can be removed, however, stringent rules would have to be in place to specify exactly what constitutes an inappropriate post. In Kathy Sierra's case it is pretty obvious that the posts were inappropriate and highly intimidating, but, for example, when does a criticism become an insult, or slander? Different people will have different definitions, and are insulted by different things, and this will inevitably lead to complications.

     The blogging community is massive, and, as is the case with the Internet, it allows people to express and act upon their most sick and malicious ideas in anonymity. There is no question that something needs to be done and the idea of an honor code is a nice one, I just have my doubts that it will solve any thing.

Further Reading
BBC: Blog death threats spark debate
BBC: Call for blogging code of conduct

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