Blogging Blackmailers & Death wishers

This is a week in which I saw and heard many dark moments in the blogosphere, some of them much darker than what the press release of the future may or may not look like. Several incidents seem to me to reveal bloggers starting to abuse the very real power that we are acquiring. 

Let me give you four examples of what I'm talking about.  I am going to withhold the names of the people involved.  I will say that my sources are in each case, people I know and trust.  In no case did I ask the other side for their perspective on what occured.

• One of the people I respect the most in the tech industry called me.  This person has a 20 year history of being credible with me.  It seems a blogger very much wanted something that my colleague had previously said he might do, then decided not to.  The blogger threatened to publish old email showing that my friend had reneged on a deal.  The key message was "Either you do what I tell you, or I'm going to use my blog to make you look bad." This smacks of extortion to me.
• A blogger I hold in pretty high esteem got into a pretty nasty dispute with a vendor and posted about it. That's fair game.  But then it accelerated into a campaign of asking bloggers who are no involved to join in.  Multiple posts seemed design to hurt the vendor, but added no additional news to the situation. This is not extortion in my view, but it moves from writing to warn others of shoddy products and services into the area of personal vendetta.
• A friend of mine owns a company whose businesses involves appropriate use of confidential and discreet information. On Friday, his firm extended an offer to a bright young woman to join as an administrative assistant.  She said she needed the weekend to think it over. She was chosen from several candidates and the firm held off on talking to other finalists until the top choice decided one way or the other. On Saturday, she posted on her personal blog, naming the company and publicly anguishing that she and her husband were planning to move out of the state and she didn't know whether she should take this new job that paid better than her current one.  My friend wanted to know whether this blog would justify  them withdrawing the offer for its clear indiscretion. In my view, this applicant has a death wish that should be granted. My answer: Of course they should.  Blogging should give employees, and potential employees a voice.  But there is nothing about the social media that allows employees to embarrass their employers.

I'm a big believer in social media giving people a voice. It has become increasingly clear that blogger voices are being heard.  Any blogger.  Back in Naked Conversations we talked about EA Housewife who made the world aware of abusive rules in her husband's workplace.  Jeff Jarvis coined to phrase Dell Hell and it resonated because so many of us were already unhappy Dell customers.

How are these two examples so very different from the four situations I learned about this week? In these two cases, bloggers took action o right a wrong.  In both cases they got some level of results. In three of these new cases, my perception is that bloggers were trying to use their voice to intimidate other parties. In the fourth case, a potential employer was afraid that not hiring the blogger would give her cause to further embarrass the company by future postings. I'm sad to say their is legitimacy in the concern.

I guess this sort of stuff was bound to happen.  It makes me sad, that four cases in one week would imply that they are happening with great frequency. It seems to me important that bloggers understand they have a great emergent power and they need to use it wisely.

If not, we collectively, lose that power as our credibility swirls around then gets sucked down the drain.

Comments

[Ewan McIntosh]

I'm coming up against more and more individuals who "because they can blog", do. But they do it excruciatingly badly or behind a password and then come back to me annoyed when the tool is not giving them what I said it *could* if they knew how to do it.

Everyone can blog, some people can write, some people have discretion. Getting all three in one person is not as 'normal' as the echo chamber would have us believe. However, I think there is a huge and growing role in showing people how they can write and how they can earn the respect of their readers by having certain attitudes and ways of working. Are these things that can be taught? I think so at the moment. We'll see over the next year whether I'm right ;-)

[Pat Phelan]

I think you forgot to mention one Shel, one of the worlds greatest and most high profile bloggers removed a post in which he insulted all franchisors ( of which I am one) and on which I was the first commenter and appears to have wiped all reference to it with no comment forthcoming.

[Kevin Hillstrom]

When folks ask my why I would blog when so many bad things can happen to me, I tell them that the same things happen every day in the real world. It's probably not surprising that this behavior is moving into an open form of communication like blogging.

[Jeremiah Owyang]

Blogger ethics call for being 1) Honest and fair, 2) Minimize Harm, and to 3) Be Accountable.

I would add that any blogger should try to add to the community, and give credit when appropriate. And yes, that means that A-list bloggers need to start linking out

[Doug Karr]

I recently had a significant contract job with a popular blogger who hasn't paid me in 4 months. He didn't have the money to pay me in the first place, he was hoping to be the middle man and resell my services and make a few bucks. Unfortunately, his client didn't pay him though.

This person has a reputation online that's important to him. I'm faced with a dilemma... do I risk the money he owes me and warn others that he's done this? Or do I wait and possibly never get paid?

I made a blog entry that didn't point him out personally but spelled out exactly what actions I was going to take. He contacted me immediately and I removed the post. I thought it was a fair thing to do, not blackmail. Of course, I still haven't gotten paid.

[shel israel]

Doug,
I've been a consultant for about 30 years. I estimate that in that time, I got shafted for about $100,000. I consider it the cost of doing business, and the reason I get money upfront in a great many cases. I would never publicly air this kind of laundry in a blog. Business disputes are private. Companies whose policies are unfriendly to customers are a different category. The blog as a bludgeon serves no good purpose that i can think of.

[Jim Durbin]

I'm with Shel. While the occasional dark thought comes to me to air dirty laundy on one of my blogs, the truth is my reputation would suffer if I did. What company would hire a blog consultant who aired their grievances about problems with another company?

Of course - that's because my business revolves around blogging. Someone like Jeff's situation with Dell is different, because he was airing his grievances as a customer, and not a potential profiter from the situation.

Way back in 2002 - a local furniture company saw a complaint from a blogger that was a number two search result. To solve the problem, he asked the blogger to take down the post in exchange for a brand new bedroom set.

The problem is what happens with another blogger has a similar problem, and knows this guy can be leaned on? There's some lesson here about the Danegeld to be learned.

The problem is the blogosphere is so big, and so human, that codes of ethics can't cover all situations. Most of us would like to see PayPerPost ignored so we are tainted, but bloggers still sign up, hurting all of our credibility.

The best we can do is work with clients and make sure they are protected, while exposing bad bloggers to the sunlight when we can.

Always vigilant, or something like that.

[Tom Raftery]

Shel,

you are well aware of the problems I had when I blogged about customer service issues I had with my former hosting company - they told me they no longer wanted my business and I had less than 5 working days to get my sites and my clients sites off their servers!

[Tom Raftery]

Shel, reading the comment I left above again, it could seem to have been written in a combative tone.

This is not what I was trying to convey at all.

I was merely adding my example to the conversation mentioning what had happened to me when I blogged about the issue I had.

Apologies if I caused any confusion with my poor communication skills.