Google Stands Up for Blogger Privacy; Wins Case

Today, a victory was won for privacy advocates and bloggers everywhere, as a school board member failed to convince New York State courts that Google () should be required to hand over details about anonymous commenters on a Blogger () blog.

Recently, a lot of flak has been tossed in a lot of different directions, much of it towards Google and Yahoo (but of course we can’t forget Facebook) in regards to their various and often conflicting stances on privacy. Today, though, Google took a position on privacy that was commendable in that they refused to hand over anonymized data unless the person to whom the data belonged to consented to its release.

Marcy Friedman, the Supreme Court Justice presiding over the case, ultimately agreed, stating that a decision against Google would have a “chilling effect on protected speech.”

The whole ordeal seems to be over anonymous comments on a blog post regarding how public funds should be dispersed. The original blog post is fairly straightforward, but the comments were accusations baseless and ad hominem. Those that have been on the internet for more than twenty minutes or so know that this is not out of the ordinary, and it reminds me of the immortal words from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back: “The Internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to [complain] about movies and share pornography with one another.”

We wouldn’t want to lose that, now would we?

November 14th, 2007 | by Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins

[via WebProNews]

Source from: http://mashable.com/2007/11/14/google-stands-up-for-blogger-privacy-wins-case/

Date: 20th July 09

Ruling on NightJack author Richard Horton kills blogger anonymity

There is a case of news regarding a blogger- NightJack has been judge by the law with the blog he post..It is similar with the case in Malaysia, which is the blogger-Raja Petra Kamarudin (Editor of Malaysia Today) arrested under the ISA.


The author of the NightJack blog. The officer, Richard Horton, 45,
a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary.

Thousands of bloggers who operate behind the cloak of anonymity have no right to keep their identities secret, the High Court ruled yesterday.

In a landmark decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of a police officer who is the author of the NightJack blog. The officer, Richard Horton, 45, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary, had sought an injunction to stop The Times from revealing his name.

In April Mr Horton was awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing, but the judges were unaware that he was using information about cases, some involving sex offences against children, that could be traced back to genuine prosecutions.

His blog, which gave a behind-the-scenes insight into frontline policing, included strong views on social and political issues.

The officer also criticised and ridiculed “a number of senior politicians” and advised members of the public under police investigation to “complain about every officer . . . show no respect to the legal system or anybody working in it”.

Some of the blog’s best-read sections, which on occasion attracted half a million readers a week, were anecdotes about cases on which Mr Horton had worked. The people and places were made anonymous and details changed, but they could still be traced back to real prosecutions.

In the first case dealing with the privacy of internet bloggers, the judge ruled that Mr Horton had no “reasonable expectation” to anonymity because “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity”.

The judge also said that even if the blogger could have claimed he had a right to anonymity, the judge would have ruled against him on public interest grounds.

The police officer, the judge said, had argued that he should not be exposed because it could put him at risk of disciplinary action for breaching regulations. But Mr Justice Eady criticised that argument as “unattractive to say the least”.

He added: “I do not accept that it is part of the court’s function to protect police officers who are, or think they may be, acting in breach of police discipline regulations from coming to the attention of their superiors.”

He added: “It would seem to be quite legitimate for the public to be told who it was who was choosing to make, in some instances quite serious criticisms of police activities and, if it be the case, that frequent infringements of police discipline regulations were taking place.”

The action arose after Patrick Foster, a Times journalist, identified the NightJack blogger “by a process of deduction and detective work, mainly using information on the internet,” the judge said.

Hugh Tomlinson, QC, for Mr Horton, had argued that “thousands of regular bloggers . . . would be horrified to think that the law would do nothing to protect their anonymity if someone carried out the necessary detective work and sought to unmask them”. Mr Tomlinson said that Mr Horton wished to remain anonymous and had taken steps to preserve his anonymity.

But Mr Justice Eady said that the mere fact that the blogger wanted to remain anonymous did not mean that he had a “reasonable expectation” of doing so or that The Times was under an enforceable obligation to him to maintain that anonymity.

Antony White, QC, for The Times, argued that there was a public interest in non-compliance by a police officer with his obligations under the statutory code governing police behaviour and also with general public law duty on police officers not to reveal information obtained in the course of a police investigation other than for performing his public duties.

Lancashire Constabulary said: “He has been spoken to regarding his professional behaviour and, in line with disciplinary procedures, has been issued with a written warning.”

What do you all think about this case? Please speak out your mind~

Source from:http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6509677.ece

By: Frances Gibb, Legal Editor (The Times)

Access date: 29.06.09

Nightjack: blogs that portray real life are the kings of our form

Daniel Finkelstein is a weekly columnist and Chief Leader Writer of The Times. His blog, Comment Central, is a personal round up of the best political opinion on the web.

A few years back I received one of those notes telling me to collect a parcel from the Post Office. When I got there, I was handed a package that contained a hardback book with a kind note inside from a good friend.

It was the first time I realised that my friend had been keeping a diary. And here, under the imprint of a big name in publishing, was the result. “All our yesterdays” as my friend’s note put it. He wasn’t joking. The book contained a record of many of the meetings I had been in over the last few years and what I had said in them.

And if the meetings hadn’t quite taken place yesterday, they hadn’t taken place all that long ago, either. I was lucky. It was a good book and I came out of it well. I didn’t resent it and I still adore my friend. But I was pretty shocked. And so, although the journalist part of me applauds any insight provided into the secret world of the police, there is also a large part of me that sees why they would want to close Nightjack down.

A blog sounds different from a formal diary. But it isn’t really. This is the Crossman diaries, or the Benn diaries, done in real time and online. And these publications, while riveting, do raise questions of the duty the authors had to keep private conversations private.

Yes, Nightjack was anonymous. But this was never likely to last. In politics there is a saying: “Don’t do or say anything you wouldn’t be relaxed about seeing on the front page of the Daily Mail” (a rule many MPs seem to have forgotten). If you publish a blog with the aim of entertaining people and even allow it to go forward for the Orwell Prize, you can’t be altogether surprised if your name gets out.

It may have been entertaining and informative to blog about current cases and police action. But was it ethical? Or loyal to your colleagues? Those, however, are issues for the author and his employers to sort out.

For the rest of us, well, Nightjack was superb. It deserved to win the Orwell Prize , not because it was written by a modern George Orwell, but because it took you inside real life in a way you couldn’t go by yourself. To me, blogs which build a picture of real life are the king of our form.

Daniel Finkelstein writes The Times blog at Comment Central

Source from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/daniel_finkelstein/article6514321.ece

Access date: 28.06.09

Online Ethics And The Bloggers' Code Revealed

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2009) — Whatever their reason for posting their thoughts online, bloggers have a shared ethical code, according to a recent study published in the journal New Media Society. Key issues in the blogosphere are telling the truth, accountability, minimizing harm and attribution, although the extent to which bloggers follow their own ethical ideals can depend on the context and intended audience.

Creating weblogs (blogs) is often viewed as a form of citizen journalism, open to anyone with Internet access. As it grows in prevalence and influence, communication scholars, news media, governments and bloggers themselves have raised questions about blogging's ethical implications. Some academics propose that bloggers should follow an ethics code, based on standards journalists follow. But few researchers have examined ethical standards bloggers themselves aspire to, and whether they adhere to their own ethical standards.

Blog tracking site Technorati tracked some 113 million blogs in early 2008, although not all blogs are active or updated frequently. A blog can be a personal journal for family and friends. But many bloggers aspire to reach a wider audience and create non-personal blogs, which cover everything else from commerce or politics to entertainment and technology.

Andy Koh, Alvin Lim and Ng Ee Soon of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore used a web survey of 1224 international bloggers with active, text-based blogs to find out more about bloggers, their ethical ideals and how they put these into practice. Of those surveyed, more than half were male (51%), most were under 30 (65%). Most were well educated, and the majority were from the USA (65%), with no other country accounting for more than eight percent of the participants.

Sharing thoughts and feelings or creating an online diary is the main drive for personal bloggers, who are mainly students (39%) and information technology industry workers (9%). These bloggers often feel they know their readers very well (62%) with many blogging for those they know personally (39%).

Non-personal bloggers are more likely to be male, older, married and better educated. Students (18%) and information technology workers (12%) still make up the largest proportions of this group. The non-personal bloggers' main reasons for blogging are to make commentary (36%) or provide information (21%). Among their diverse blog topics, government and politics (28%) and news (10%) are most common. Their primary intended audiences tend to be people that they do not know personally (48%), or no particular intended audience (38%). Despite this, almost half still feel they know their readers well.

The researchers identified four underlying ethical principles important to bloggers: truth telling, accountability, minimizing harm and attribution. Truth telling involves honesty, fairness and completeness in reporting. Accountability involves being answerable to the public, bearing the consequences of one's actions and revealing conflicts of interest, and minimizing harm underlies issues involving privacy, confidentiality, reputational harm, consideration of others' feelings, and respecting diversity and underprivileged groups. Attribution covers issues such as avoiding plagiarism, honouring intellectual property rights and giving sources proper credit.

The researchers found that personal bloggers valued attribution most, followed by minimizing harm, truth telling and accountability respectively. Non-personal bloggers valued both attribution and truth-telling most, followed by minimizing harm, then accountability. For both groups, attribution was most valued, and accountability least valued. But between these two groups, truth telling was most valued among non-personal bloggers, whereas personal bloggers valued minimizing harm more than non-personal bloggers did.

"This first large-scale survey of blogging ethics revealed no shocking lack of ethics in these areas," says Koh. But he adds: "Ethics codes may be little more than a set of ideals, unless they have 'teeth' in the form of sanctions".

Attribution was paramount for both groups (non-personal bloggers valued truth-telling as much as attribution). Attribution is vitally important among bloggers for building community. But did they put this into practice? Where the non-personal bloggers were concerned, attribution was practised as frequently as truth-telling and minimizing harm. But despite the importance they placed on attribution, personal bloggers were actually better at minimising harm than at attribution.

Credibility counts. The authors suggest that non-personal bloggers practise truth telling, attribution and minimizing harm with similar frequency because they want their content taken seriously. As in journalism, offering readers sources and providing links makes for more convincing blogging than just telling the 'truth' alone.

Accountability was valued and practised least by both groups of bloggers. Some reasons for this may be a belief that bloggers cannot be sued for blog content, or a perception that the social risk of a failed relationship with readers is fairly low compared to a failed face-to-face interaction.

The study also highlights how a personal blog on thoughts and feelings is necessarily more subjective, and so a belief in telling the truth ranks behind attribution and avoiding harm. When your primary audience is more likely to consist of people you know, minimizing harm may be a higher priority than telling the truth.

The present findings revealed no significant difference between personal and non-personal bloggers' agreement on the need for a blogging ethics. But even a self-imposed bloggers' ethics code may constrain the free expression championed in much of the blogosphere, or interfere with bloggers' autonomy to make ethical decisions.

The exceptionally large, diverse and informally linked blogosphere may not be particularly suited to self-regulation. But in reality bloggers profess that they value the principles and adhere to the practices explored in this study. Less ethical bloggers can also expect payback: the blogosphere is more interactive than traditional media, allowing instant and often vigorous feedback to bloggers that violate readers' standards. This 'sanction' on unethical behaviour may replace the need for a formal blogging ethics code.

---

Journal reference:

1. Cenite et al. Doing the right thing online: a survey of bloggers' ethical beliefs and practices. New Media & Society, 2009; 11 (4): 575 DOI: 10.1177/1461444809102961

Adapted from materials provided by SAGE Publications UK, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Source from: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090625133220.htm
Date of access: 28.06.09

Bloggers, Blogs and Blogging : Ethics Codes discussed

The issue of blogs, bloggers and blogging ethics - should there be a code of ethics, should bloggers regard ethical issues and if so - which ethical considerations should a blogger be concerned about?

Having been involved in the world of blogging for so long, I find the discussion of blogger ethics fascinating, and I do believe it is something that most bloggers confront and think about at some point in their blogging life. I would be trying to gain some more academic insights regarding this topic as part of my research and finding.

May i gain some of your ideas for this issue, please comment about it, thanks ~

My Mini-Thesis

Hi all,

I am Bryan Yap Kian Siong from Johore- Malaysia,I'am 23 years old, currently take my BA (Hons) in Mass Communication at Liverpool John Moores University.

And now I am doing a mini-research regarding the Blogger's privacy and ethical considerations as blogging now become a social activity.

Therefore, I need the help from you all to help/assist me to complete the thesis, thoundsand of thanks to you all. Thank you =)