Thursday, August 09, 2007

"It's not so much that I want to kill him..."

I've done a blogging powerpoint workshop at Liberal events once or twice and my favourite part of it is the "blogging dos and don'ts". The punchline to that section is "Don't compare Olivia Chow to a dog".

Well, it looks like there's a new blogging don't that deserves mentioning. "Don't threaten to kill Stephen Harper"

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7 Comments:

  • But the guy got off, so is it really a DON'T?

    By Blogger bigcitylib, at 11:38 a.m.  

  • True enough...but it still seems like a bad idea to me...

    By Blogger calgarygrit, at 11:54 a.m.  

  • Getting and keeping readership with consistant, thoughtful posts isn't easy, and many people are out there blogging for a readership. They see people like Kate McMillian saying absurd, outragous, hateful things, and maintaining a huge audience (relative to blogs in general). The temptation to try the method is high.

    The same is true for all media - blogs aren't the only ones who face that temptation (cough cough Bill O'Reiley cough Daily Kos same as the Nazi Party cough).

    By Blogger Don, at 12:35 p.m.  

  • What I find even MORE interesting about that article is that it gives the distinct impression that the judge believes the lack of a joking context within a blog does not prevent violent things said on blogs from being taken as non-threatening.

    Because, one presumes, blogs themselves are a joke.

    Ahem.

    By Blogger Gauntlet, at 2:45 p.m.  

  • Well, the judge, I think, got this one right. As loathesome as it would be to say you *want* to kill someone, unless you actually take that next step and say, I'm *going* to kill you, then you really aren't committing a serious threat. This makes this issue one of basic freedom of speech. We don't have thought police, and we are allowed to think what we want and speak our minds, with the exception of slandar and libel, where we try to use our words to deliver measurable damage.

    But the expression of rage that the site engages in, while personally off-putting, is as valid a thought as any other, and it would be far more dangerous to society if we tried to silence that.

    By Blogger James Bow, at 5:50 p.m.  

  • Mind you, if anybody *did* express that level of anger, I think it would be fair to keep an eye on that person, in case things did move to the next level. No harm in keeping watch.

    By Blogger James Bow, at 5:52 p.m.  

  • You could add 'Don't criticize Stephen Harper or you'll lose your job" - Read Garth Turner on the Michael Coren Show with Gerry Nicholls who learned the hard way.

    By Blogger Loraine Lamontagne, at 7:00 a.m.  

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