Blog censorship wins support
By Renai LeMay, ZDNet Australia
13 April 2005
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/0,2000061791,39187965,00.htm
Most Americans believe bloggers should not be allowed to publish sensitive
personal information about individuals, according to a new survey.
Web hosting company Hostway this week released the results of its poll of
2,500 respondents on blogging. Eighty percent of respondents did not believe
that bloggers should be allowed to publish home addresses and other personal
information about private citizens.
A further 72 percent favoured censorship of personal information about
celebrities, and 68 percent information about elected or appointed
government officials such as judges or mayors.
However, more than one-third of respondents had never heard of blogs before
participating in the survey, and only around 30 percent of participants had
actually visited a blog themselves.
While Americans were concerned about free speech, the survey revealed more
moderate attitudes when it compared bloggers to journalists.
Fifty-two percent of those surveyed said bloggers should have the same
rights as traditional journalists, while 27 percent did not express an
opinion. Free speech rights are protected under the first amendment of the
US Bill of Rights, which says the US Congress shall make no law abridging
the freedom of speech or of the press. Such rights are not enshrined in the
Australian Constitution.
Despite the fact most respondents classed bloggers in the same category as
journalists when it came to free speech, the survey revealed bloggers are
not taken as seriously as traditional media.
For example, 39 percent said they found blogs less credible than newspaper
articles, although an additional 32 percent said they either did not know or
had no opinion.
The survey also tapped into patterns of blog usage, revealing most people
used blogs to obtain information about politics or current events. This news
may not come as a surprise to US political bloggers, who recently mobilised
against a move by the country's Federal Election Commission (FEC) which
would have imposed harsh rules on the blogging community.
The FEC is currently in the process of extending campaign finance rules to
the Internet -- a process that involves, among other things, deciding if
bloggers qualify as journalists.
Opinions were split on official company blogs, which have been in the news
due to the high-profile sacking of Google employee Mark Jen, who claimed he
was sacked for blogging about the company just 11 days after he started work
there.
In contrast to Google, many prominent companies officially support the
blogging efforts of their employees. Sun Microsystems and Microsoft in
particular are noted for their company blogs.
While a majority of survey respondents agreed it was acceptable for a
company to censor what appeared in the blogs of its employees, almost half
said it wasn't acceptable to actually fire an employee for a controversial
blog posting. And only a quarter of respondents supported the company's
right to do so.
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