The Freedom of Blogging

One of the major issues facing blogging today is the fact that blogging about one's personal life usually involves sensitive issues like social relationships, complaints about work conditions, controversial contemporary issues, etc.

Many bloggers argue that since this is their personal blog, it is their space in the world and they are entitled to write about anything they want to in their blog. They champion 'freedom of speech' and certainly blogging potentially magnifies the scope of one's audience by the very nature of the internet.

However, many bloggers start whining and complaining when people start posting comments on their views. Firstly, subjectivitism is a human trait that often blinds one to the bigger picture. As such, most rants are very one-sided, deriving mainly from the blogger's personal experiences and thoughts on the matter. A religious person chancing upon a blogger's personal antagonistic take on religion, will construe the viewpoint in a very negative way and may be inclined to post a comment which criticises the point and tries to offer a rebuttal. This may be positive since a healthy debate may ensue and both parties (and neutral readers) will be able gain extra insight, valuable especially since it is seen from a perspective that one would not have conceived himself.

However, therein the problem lies. Most often, many take criticism personally and any small rebuke may be construed as a personal attack. Certainly, there are posts which launch personal attacks against their adversaries itself, but these are mostly below the belt issues and they deserve to be treated with the manner of respect which they issue their personal attacks.

However, sometimes a viewpoint may trigger indignance in an individual even though it wasn't meant to be a personal attack against a person or group. And when a debate ensues, it may denigrate down to a personal war whereby a person's intelligence, looks and character is basically slandered. An unhealthy flame war ensues.

It should be pretty common sense that when u create a blog, the potential audience is the WORLD and if you are not discerning enough to exercise some tact either on your identity or on your content then you are only inviting trouble to yourself. It is just like when you are walking in a busy shopping mall, you are entitled to wearing what you want but surely you cannot complain if you wear outrageous clothes and not attract stares or comments from passer-bys.

As much as it is a personal template for freedom of expression, there has always been the need to balance this with a person's right to privacy and to defend his good name. Blogging's inherent nature is public and if one wishes to even make seemingly inane remarks about and individual/entity there is a chance that they may chance upon the remarks and get affronted. If you were in an office, you may gossip about your boss being 'bald' although you do not really have anything against him. However, this may be a sensitive issue to him. You would also MAKE SURE he couldn't hear you because if he did, he is bound to be insulted and as the employer he has every right not to condone such behaviour if he has option not to. An office gossip may be overheard by a dozen or so employees. A blog on the internet has the potential to reach far more people than that.

While complete freedom of expression should be exercisable on one's own blogspace, one must also anticipate and deal with the consequences of it. Bad mouthing individuals/entities on the internet is as bad, if not worse, than speaking ill of someone on a street, because ultimately a blog is on public domain, not a private diary. Any argument that purports that the target individual/entity mentioned 'was not supposed to be reading it because the blog was not designed for such audience' is hypocritical simply because if the target individual/entity was not supposed to read it, there are enough checks and balances in place (passwords, private blogs) to ensure that it does not happen. However, this will of course lower the potential readership of one's blog. In other words, such an argument is a case of 'wanting only to enjoy the good points but not willing to accept the potential bad points'. The term "professionalism" may be of consideration to those who feel they have a right to blog about anything at work without fear of reprisals.