I learned today that freedom of speech is under attack, and I, for one, am pretty appalled by it. The news came to me via the local paper, in the form of an article on a new type of insurance being sold specifically to cover bloggers, who are now apparently at risk of being sued for everything they own.
This insurance is dual purpose - it will provide some relief for two main problems - in the case of a lawsuit for copyright infringement, which is apparently a serious blogging problem; and it will cover some costs if the blogger is sued for defamation. For those who do not have a dictionary handy, but have never really been clear on the difference, defamation is called slander when it is spoken, and liable when it's in print, but in either case, is supposed to refer to making a willful false claim against another person to their detriment. [Technically, then, it is slander when you tell your girlfriend she looks good in that dress she is currently wearing if she then decides to go out and be seen in it, when, in fact, she should immediately donate it to charity and never admit she even owned it, but that's probably another issue.]
To continue. As you can well imagine, the notion of being sued for the silly drivel being posted each day by people like me rather took me aback. I mean, seriously, I am sympathetic to the copyright problem, but liable? I had better sign up now, before anyone who might theoretically be named Dave gets any ideas in his head.
Have we lost our collective sense of humor? Or more likely, our collective ability to reason? Because if you take bloggers seriously enough to sue them, then you simply do not get out enough.
The most dangerous part of it, at least according to the article I read, is that you can, in fact, be sued, even if the information is correct. I had no idea. Since when does it put you in the wrong to tell the truth? If people are afraid of being exposed for who they are, perhaps they should think a little harder about their behavior in the first place. I'll tell you what I always told my kids. If you don't want the world to know the stupid stuff you have done, don't do stupid stuff. Because public disclosure is a consequence of your own actions.
In the case of people simply making up lies to destroy the character of another person, I have sympathy, of course. I am sure it happens, and there are some pretty powerful bloggers out there who have a daily audience of millions as a forum from which to spout their untruths. If, for example, a blogger says something about a presidential candidate, that doesn't make it so, but the campaigns are still forced to spend millions in advertising to combat the false impression. In all fairness, the media does the same thing, especially the party apologists on both sides, who seem to spout lies and half truths as a matter of course. Whether you lean left or right, I'm pretty sure you could find plenty of examples in your own version of the media to illustrate my point.
But I don't think that is the source of the lawsuits that are being addressed with the blogger insurance. The blogger world is full of people setting the record straight with their own version of the truth, and evidently, there are some people so afraid of what might be said, they feel their only recourse is to file a lawsuit. You wonder if they have considered simply telling the blogger that they are wrong. Perhaps write their own blog in response. I, for one, would always welcome correction, and will give fair rebuttal space to anyone who wishes to throw darts in my direction to something I have written.
But we are not a society that communicates. We are a culture of instant action, most of it actionable. Which was the point of the insurance. Most of the cases will not be successful. But the nuisance factor of having to hire a lawyer to deal with the fallout, the time involved and the other annoyances, is what the insurance policy is protecting against.
I had better get signed up. I suspect sarcastic people such as myself are the main targets of these nuisance suits. While I tease in good fun, and the targets of my arrows are typically the people I like the most, because I count on them to take it all in good fun [after all, they already know me, they know I'm really harmless,] you just never know when I will say something that goes too far. It happens. In the words of a certain little boy I know, who makes some mistakes but is always regretful, "I was GONNA be sorry." And to clarify, no, it is not my little boy. Don't need to have him filing suit against me.
As I said, I have a fair amount of sympathy for the copyright infringement issues, which are apparently rife in the blogging world. Sometimes I think the schools have entirely missed teaching the unit on ethics and responsibility in print, because in my teaching days I saw work that was entirely lifted from another source, with nary a mention that the thoughts and ideas and words belonged to someone else. [Please note that no names were used, and any resemblance to any student I ever taught is purely coincidental. Whew. Close one there.] I would be concerned about the same thing, what with being in print now and all, except that I can't imagine having anything I've ever said being interesting enough for anyone to bother.
To hare off on a brief tangent here, though. Recently, I did have the rather interesting experience of hearing that something I wrote, obviously not on this blog, but in a real printed publication of sorts, was used in a sermon in a local church (properly credited, I'm pleased to report.) I felt an odd mixture of pleasure in knowing that my words reached someone and spoke to their heart, where it really matters, and embarrassment that anything I have ever said was worth repeating in any context whatsoever. It all left me feeling a little confused and humbled. I am not used to being taken seriously, so it was a little overwhelming to hear that I was cogent enough to be used in a sermon, and not even as the bad example.
To get back to my point, though, I do have sympathy for the person who has truly been defamed by someone who is angry and out to diminish them publicly as a way of inflicting damage on their reputation, or more likely, on their heart. I can certainly understand why that would be a dangerous tool, if you have a wide audience that can affect the opinions of a lot of people.
But the truth is, most of the bloggers out there have a pretty limited audience, consisting mainly of their spouse or a few close friends, and the worst damage they might inflict is on the world of words itself, rather than another individual. I have seen some rather tortured blog posts, that surely can't threaten anyone, no matter how vitriolic they may be. How seriously can you take someone that can't even write in complete sentences? I suspect the popular view of the blogger sitting in their parents' dark basement is probably not all that far off from the truth, in many cases.
But, the risk is still apparently out there, so it must be addressed. Therefore, from this point forward, I will append all my posts with the following disclaimer:
"Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental, and nothing I say is intended, in any way, shape or form, to offend, enlighten, amuse, entertain, or encourage. There is no point, there is no reason to read this, and whatever you do, under no circumstances should you form any opinions about anything I have said, because it is all meaningless drivel best left unsaid."
There, don't we all feel so much better now?
