Sunday, April 15, 2007

Does the blogosphere need a code of conduct?


A week on, and the fuss over the proposed Bloggers’ Code of Conduct seems to have died down. Oddly enough, Tim O’Reilly, despite admirable commitment to a cause, wasn’t able to win the massed millions of the blogosphere round to his side.

When I was about 11, I was completely suckered by an advert for a small handheld computer which you could use to send secret messages to your friends, a precursor to the SMS.

I resolved that by the time I went back to school on Monday, everyone would have one and I didn’t want be the only one to miss out. Of course, I blew all my pocket money on the things and was the only one who ever had one. I smashed it on purpose about six months later.

The Bloggers’ Code of Conduct looks to be suffering much the same fate. The idea is nice, but that’s all it is. There is something to be said for self-regulation, but not a lot. Against the benefit of cutting down on personal abuse, we must weigh the acceptability of attempting to curb the freest information exchange we have ever known.

The biggest problem is that it assumes that all newspaper columnists have, in and of themselves, a greater degree of integrity than bloggers. But lest we forget, there are newspaper columnists who produce the most bigoted vitriol each week – naming no names – albeit with a greater degree of penmanship than the average blogger.

So why should bloggers be treated any differently? The fact is, we already have a code of conduct. It is the same one that governs any form of journalism, and it is called the law.

Just wait for the first high-profile libel case against a blogger. Self-regulation will follow.