Blogging!

It is fascinating to figure out that blogging can raise so many questions. I guess I never considered that my blogging could affect someone so deeply. We must consider that our words are being placed “out there” for everyone to see. While we often feel compelled to complain about coworkers or work conditions to our spouses, we can get in serious trouble for using the internet to do some steam blowing. The workplace can see this as a threat to the workplace running smoothly. “They fire the employee for the disparaging comments he made on the blog.” (Hudson, 40) They have the right to do this because most jobs are “At will” Which means they have the right to fire you at any time. While we feel that we have the right to speak our minds we might have to realize that it is our job and we might just need to keep some things off-line. It is also important to consider how blogging can be considered a problem for students in school as well. Cyber-bullying and putting information that might be harmful to the world needs to be thought about before we allow it to become main stream. Students should have to be held to a certain standard. I know that hurtful statements are usually found and even word of mouth can get the blog seen by so many viewers. It is absolutely important to protect our First Amendment Rights but to what extent should we protect those rights? When those words become offensive to the person they are being written about, we should have the right to stop it as well. We can argue that we should protect our First Amendment rights to free speech, but when that free speech begins to infringe on your right to freedom and the right to pursue happiness don’t you feel that something has to be done to protect that as well? If your child is being attacked daily through hurtful words on a blog, don’t you want to have a way to stop it? I know that we must consider where the blog was written, at school/home, but there has to be a way to stop harmful material from being published no matter where it is produced. “Legislators have responded in several states by passing laws against cyber-bullying, which criminalize online harassing and intimidation.” (Hudson, 71) This might make an impact that will stop some forms of harassment through the school systems. We can only hope that blogging will eventually only be for the purpose of spreading important information instead of using it for evil!

References

Hudson, David L. (Dec. 2007) “Blogging.” Chelsea House. Online Journalism. (Pp 40 – 71) Retrieved February 7, 2011 from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/sooner/docDetail.action?docID=10284452