Blog Response #1

…Oh what a tangled (electronic) “web” we weave… In preparation to answer the question posed by Gina Kim, with regards to whether or not a system should be implemented to distinguish bloggers who blog truthfully with good intentions and notable credentials, as opposed to bloggers who have neither credibility nor authority, the first thing that popped into my mind was what the implications of restricting bloggers speech with regards to the First Amendment would be. A quick Google search on the topic returned 9,400,000 results within 0.11 seconds, the most interesting of which was an article by Chris Daly, a professor of journalism at Boston University entitled, “Should Bloggers Be Covered by the First Amendment?” In this article, Daly explains the beginning of pamphleteers (fundamentally what we would consider a blogger today), and discussed the effect of Thomas Paine’s infamous and anonymous pamphlet “Common Sense”. “Common Sense” said Daly, “And other pamphlets like it were precisely the kind of political journalism that Jefferson had in mind when he insisted on a constitutional amendment in 1790 to protect press freedom --- anonymous, highly opinionated writing from diverse, independent sources. In historical terms, today’s bloggers are much closer in spirit to the Revolutionary-era pamphleteers than today’s giant, conglomerate mainstream media. On those grounds, blogs deserve the full constitutional blessings that the First Amendment guarantees.” Of course, there are legal restrictions which do not grant protection to those for “libel, trespassing in pursuit of news, or the theft of trade secrets,” but basically, to restrict the speech of bloggers, or to implement any system which would do so, would be unconstitutional. With that being said, I think people should definitely take what they read in any given blog with a grain of salt, because the author, regardless of whether or not they have signed their name to their blog, could in fact be anyone. For some people who blog, the beauty of the practice is in the absolute anonymity of it. With that being said, I could see some sort of communications publication implementing a blog site which would require an application process or membership, but inevitably, political, economic and social factors would make said site biased and not what the average person is looking for when they sit down at their computer to read blogs on a certain topic. I suppose only time will tell how we untangle the “web” we have woven…