Civility or Censorship?

Civility or Censorship? Check out this interesting article and follow up dialogue about the notion of what's civil, what should be censored, what's safe, and how to proceed, particularly if you are a female blogger. I have avoided getting drawn into the Kathy Sierra discussion because frankly, everyone else has and its become a noisy, cluttered and confusing topic for people to follow, including the factual series of events. (inside or outside the blogosphere)

Starts the piece, "on the heels of the posting of death threats against prominent blogger Kathy Sierra, technology publisher Tim O'Reilly yesterday released a draft code of conduct for blogging that calls for an end to anonymous comments and a commitment to online civility."

Here's the jist of it: "the code, which includes a symbol akin to a sheriff's badge stating "civility enforced," notes that the frank and open conversations embraced by bloggers do not have to lack civility. The code urges bloggers to take responsibility for the words and comments they post on blogs and to avoid posting content intended to threaten or harass others and delete comments that contain such content."

What I do know is that we should not give control, energy and attention to those who started this. This is an emotional issue and rightfully so, but because of the nature of it, the follow up discussions can potentially continue to feed the abusers. We shouldn't give them the power.

The sad reality is that the language and actions are violent and threatening and people like Kathy and other bloggers who face this kind of abuse need to be protected. Perhaps there's a middle ground? Perhaps an ethical code that the blogging community supports and monitors can meet people halfway and serve to protect people so we can continue to safely express ourselves online.

It makes me think about so many examples that Andrew Keen points to in his upcoming book "The Cult of the Amateur." It's not yet out (due in June), but I just finished an early preview of it. According to his beliefs of where social media and Web 2.0 is going, things we're facing now are only inevitable and are going to get worse. More on his book coming soon.

Also see Cory Doctorow's views.