For those who stuck their fingers in their ears and loudly sang “La, La, La, La, La” while reading my Why Does Time Magazine’s Choice of “You” Bother Me?, I bet you will get with the program because Danny Sullivan wrote about online user behavior too.
He writes about “blog drama”. And, he wrote:
“Whatever Happened to Online Etiquette? from David Pogue at the New York Times came out last week and really struck a chord with me, as I’ve watched the sniping and drama grow. He gives the reasons why people might act this way, chiefly that you are anonymous on the internet or far removed from those you might be attacking. (emphasis mine)
In my blog post, I wrote:
“In my mind, “revolution” was the instant a person figured out they could communicate anything to anyone in the world via email. This brought on dramatic changes to global humanity because it removed the responsibility of being humane. There is no longer a basic requirement to be considerate of other people when you can be anonymous, or blame your behavior on something like, “This is how we do it where I come from and if you can’t take it, you’re a [fill in degrading term here].” (emphasis mine)
This is what’s getting my pot into a tea about the Internet. Of course you can have and share an opinion, but there’s ethical ways of doing that. Though I’m unhappy with Digg right now, I left the door open. I realize it’s made up of a lot people, and some of them may not like what they see happening there either. Maybe they’ll fix their problems. I’m rooting for you who want to do that.
It’s not my job or duty or right to publically torture them. I do have the freedom to voice my concerns and also defend a friend or two. I never told anyone not to use their service. In fact, I went to their site to see how someone could use it better and I posted on that. (The part about filtering what you get there.)
What bothers me is a situation whereby a service lets you filter out what you may not like and in my mind, that’s fantastic and let’s call it a day. However, this is not happening. There are members who don’t use the filters, see something they don’t like and attempt to get it banned. That’s not right.
If you don’t like my mailbox color, or my car, or my hair, or my blog, or my opinions, my ugly websites, or my kitchen with orange pots hanging from the ceiling or my non-fake Christmas tree, does this mean you have the right to go online to try and have me removed?
Bah.
But don’t listen to me. Listen to Danny. Everybody loves him.
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