Where do you draw the line?

This incident has become a talking point over the internet, spiralling into social conversations even on Friendfeed. The two camps made their points, and all are equally valid. Quite a classic incident I must say, for several reasons.

1. Simon Blint, was just doing his job. He’s not wrong for wanting to protect his employees.

2. Simon Blint was not professional in his job. It’s just plain wrong, need we say more? Especially when he had been given countless opportunities to right what was wrong.

If you wondering if that is all, you could be wrong. It led me further to emphasize the devastating effect by the third reason below.

3. Again, blogs and social networks ensured that news travelled fast and far.

Granted, “asshole” isn’t a word suitable to be used over blogs when criticizing a certain party or individual. Thomas Hawk had since acknowledged his mistake of allowing emotions to get the better out of him, by changing the word to “jerk” now instead. It just tells us how sensitive certain words can be, and bloggers should avoid committing this sin totally.

Jeremiah Owyang’s FF conversation and blog post seemed to be the loudest critic of Thomas Hawk. He made a lot of sense, but I feel there is a major difference between criticizing online and airing of displeasure on an open platform. Such that, if customers are frowned upon for online negativities, does that mean bloggers can only write about positive feedbacks? Will that not be a manufactured reputation, casted far from what truthful opinions are?

What I feel online critics (truly) are:
Persistent downplaying of credits where it should be given, either for sensationalism or for hidden popularity/publicity purposes.

What I feel online regressors (truly) are:
Expression of opinions from true experiences - good or bad - and attribute these experiences into their opinions.

For too long, we have been discouraged from speaking out against undesirable conducts. At times, I had to second-guess what’s the correct definition of a “unbiased review” of a service or product. It seemed to me that this is a term that we can conveniently tweak to suit our required images we hope to present to the public. That’s also beside the point of companies or individuals who actually believe that they can get away with it.

In fact, I had an experience of how another blogger commented in my previous blog to oppose my views but subsequently contacted me privately over IM to share a slightly opposite stand from what she had expressed. Why? They (she and the criticized party) needed each other for their own agenda. And that is precisely why I always preferred readers to either converse with me through comments or via their blogs. Openly, that is. The idea of “private settlement” had become too shady for my liking.

(FYI, I am still holding on to the conversation log until today. I decided not to publish any of it because it will be too damaging towards both professional standings and individual characters. I’m a very careful person, some of you knows it.)

Coming to online reputation though, Jeremiah isn’t wrong about how it can affect you in the long run except for the part that sounded like he was “discouraging negative feedbacks”. Come a time, will bloggers actually hold themselves back when their legitimate criticism can actually help others from being… say… duped into a certain unethical service? It really depend on where they’re coming from. I agree as well, that high profile bloggers should be extremely cautious with criticism - especially over the choice of words.

I meant to say, criticism isn’t always bad. If you take it positively, that is.

Related Read:
Thomas Hawk’s first post
Thomas Hawk’s incident revisited (with his evidence)

By Ed | August 11, 2008

Filed Under Social Media

 


Comments

Leave a Reply