Don't Blog

Blog a Riot, Get A Police Record

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 14:57:00 +0000

Thomas Crampton: Bloggers Investigated for Inciting Paris Riots

In France bloggers have been investigated by police for inciting the riots.

Also, my audiocast on the riots for the New York Times website. (My first podcast-style effort)

Blogs and sms messages were apparently used to coordinate violent action on a large scale.

Blog and Get Murdered

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Fri, 05 Aug 2005 21:15:00 +0000

Just blog that the police are in kahoots with extremists and see what happens:

Boing Boing: Journalist, blogger Steven Vincent killed in Iraq: Freelance reporter and blogger Steven Vincent was murdered Tuesday night in Basra, Iraq. Reports Vincent wrote on ties that link Iraqi police with extremists likely led to his killing.

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Fri, 08 Apr 2005 15:06:00 +0000

Claiming a Technorati Profile.

Blogged Out: Scoble, Hobson, Edelman, Rubel

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 04:21:00 +0000

Steve Rubel posts:

Robert Scoble is getting a life and giving up his linkblog. Good for Robert. Marc Orchant also is getting a little blog-worn, as is Neville Hobson. And Richard Edelman is taking a blog break. Even I was only able to get two posts up today. Maybe there's a trend here. Blogging can lead to success and fame. Couple this with an economy showing life and what do you get? Burnout. No worries. I am still here to keep my blogging pace. Travel, client work and new business pitches do make it challenging, at times. How would you feel if I took the blogging equivalent of a "mental health day?"

Join the crowd of previously stressed out bloggers: reports on Justin Hall, Andrew Sullivan, Vagablog, danah boyd.

Blogger Blocked at Border

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Sun, 20 Mar 2005 07:37:00 +0000

TORONTO. Canadian blogging consultant Jeremy Wright was denied entrance to the United States by a security official who didn't understand what blogging was, that you could make a living with it, or that you could talk to people through the Internet. The story is really about the growing communication gap between those who live and work online, and those who don't. Wright's public posts on this: one, two, and three. via Jörg Kantel and Earl Mardle.

Boss Bullies Blogger to Pull Post Promptly

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 02:06:00 +0000

Irony and beauty.

Irony: this happened at a small blogging company (they're all small).
Beauty: the transparency of this transaction.

More or less:

Marginally risky art work provokes disproportionate feedback,
directed at the blogger's employer.
Employer spells out the effects to blogger,
who chooses to further explain/excuse the art and removes the picture.

p.s. No bloggers were bullied in the making of this post. I overstated management pressure for the sake of a corny headline.

Blog Politically and Go To Jail

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 17:08:00 +0000

Declan McCullagh interviews U.S. Federal Election Commissioner Bradley Smith in The coming crackdown on blogging for CNET News.com. The FEC is now applying McCain-Feingold to bloggers, treating blogging as a political contribution worth money to a campaign. Link to a candidate? Say something nice? Run a Yahoo! group? Host a meetup? Copy something from a candidate's site on your blog? Report it to the FEC or set aside bail money.

Blogger faces Class Action Suit By Commenters

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 03:41:00 +0000

Not yet, but American copyright law makes it possible. Blawger Reasonable Man says you own your own words when published. Conceivably commenters might sue for a share of ad revenue, or a partnership stake in the blog.

"Who owns blog comments?" also suggests a blog's Terms Of Service can be written to assign some of the commenter's rights to the blogger, so a blogger can keep the post as part of the web site and protect its conversations.

As bloggers add defensive TOS, look for some bloggers to create predatory terms where all your comments belong to the blogger, no rights left for the commenter.

Blog and Lose a Kidney

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 00:18:00 +0000

via Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing (quoted in full) and the Orlando Sentinel:

Would-be kidney transplant recipient denied because of website. Alex Crionas needs a kidney, and his friend Patrick Garrity would like to give him one. But the transplant was recently blocked by a coordinating group because Crionas published an account of his need for the procedure on a personal website. The group said Crionas' online outreach gave him an unfair advantage over other candidates who may not have internet resources.
They went through rigorous blood and tissue testing last month at LifeLink HealthCare Institute, which coordinates the transplant program for Tampa General Hospital, and say they were declared physically compatible for the operation. But the hope of a new life for the 28-year-old Crionas didn't last long. Crionas got a letter earlier this month from LifeLink, a Tampa nonprofit that links patients and donors, telling him his request for surgery was rejected because Crionas had a Web site seeking a donor. "I was dumbfounded," Crionas said. "We didn't even meet through the Web site."

Cops investigate Finnish blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 06:47:00 +0000

via the Butt Ugly weblog:

Ilkka Pöyry, the headmaster of the Muhos Korivaara school, who has been using (and approving) questionable methods to give fundamentalist religious schooling to kids in the elementary grades (3-4), has sued Jani of Marginaali for libel. (Well, not really sued, it's more like asking the police to look into the matter by claiming that a crime has occurred. I don't know the English words for that.)

Karshed: Resigning over your weblog

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 03:40:00 +0000

Karshed :

As I'm sure as most of y'all know by now, I no longer have my job because of this website. Management had monitored my computer for over a month, tracked what sites I visited and blog posts I wrote and tried to place me between a rock and a hard place over things said on this personal site about people at work (even when said people and said work was never mentioned explicitly). more...

Karsh, 01/29/05.

Related to dooced, being fired for your weblog.

Talking Points:

Quitting a job to protect your blog is a serious step. What's your tipping point?
Would quitting actually protect your blog if your former employer sends lawyers to attack?
What might a request to stop blogging tell you about your boss? About your company?

Blogged Out: Justin Hall

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:57:00 +0000

Reyhan Harmanci, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer, wrote Time to get a life -- pioneer blogger Justin Hall bows out at 31. A great interview with Hall, Rebecca Blood and others. Is there a Samson and Delilah Effect where new love leads to a loss of bloggy powers?

Blog Widow

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 04:20:00 +0000

Bloggers abandon their families as they compulsively blog. One result: "blog widows." Common activities:

Apologizing to friends for all the "blog talk."
Arguing for quality time for the relationship, for the kids.
Learning the blogging lingo just to be able to talk to their other.
Accompanying their blogger to real world blog meetups, just for the support of other blog widows.
Worst: trying out blogging.

Who is going to start Bloganon for the families of hard core blog addicts?

Principal: Blogs Worse Than Heroin

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 21:20:00 +0000

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN. High school principal warns parents about the dangers of his students blogging, instead of acting on deaths from heroin among his student body. via The Blog Herald and the Grand Rapids Press. Hazards include:

talking about other students and teachers.
sharing information about tests.
attracting perverts.

Millions of young people blog despite the risks.

Blogjackers turn blogs into spam

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 19:01:00 +0000

John Dowell reports your blog identity is at risk.

When I did a Technorati trawl on "macromedia" earlier today I found collections of old Macromedia press releases on two Blogspot properties, the old addresses for Vernon Viehe and Bob Tartar. I don't know what the scam is here -- it looks like the perp knocked out the old content ... my guess is that they're trying to get search engine prominence for eventual highlighting of their own viagra links, or something.

Blog Burnout Claims Alpha Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Sat, 05 Feb 2005 05:07:00 +0000

Andrew Sullivan says he's taking "a breather" from The Daily Dish, now the 9th most popular blog out of millions. Imagine Oprah putting her daily television show on hold at the height of her success. Burnout must really hurt.

Bosses Claim Workers' Weblogs

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 21:36:00 +0000

InformationWeek cover story: "The Weblog Question: People are starting Weblogs in growing numbers but the owner of the content isn't always clear" by John Foley. Examples of this conflict from General Motors, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Google, Hewlet-Packard, Microsoft, Amazon, Sun Microsystems. Factors: formal policies, blog predating employment, agreements that carve out rights, use of company time/systems, content related/unrelated to work, disclaimers.

Blog Celebs on the Job Market?

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:15:00 +0000

Celebrity sometimes comes to employee bloggers publishing outside the firewall. How big is the risk they'll quit your firm for a job in journalism, media, or micropublishing? With some having daily readership in the tens of thousands, money and fame and independence beckon.

Dooced

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 19:38:00 +0000

Dooced defined by UrbanDictionary.com

Losing your job for something you wrote in your online blog, journal, website, etc.
Did you hear Mary got fired yesterday for writing about Becky in her blog? Yeah, she got dooced.

Source: Jennifer, Feb 26, 2004

Seen elsewhere:

NPR: Digital Culture: Firings Raise Questions of Blogger Freedoms.
BBC: Looming pitfalls of work blogs.
NevOn: Don't Be Dooced in 2005. "dooce dodging"
Wagner's Weblog: A review of dooced bloggers by cause.
bizgirl - international librarian of mystery: Three posts on being dooced. Read the dozens of comments.
Heather B. Armstrong's Dooce.com dooced archive: the posts the led to and followed Heather being fired.

Bloggers Line Up To Sell Their Souls

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 17:14:00 +0000

The Blog Business Summit invites the greedy to blog, and bloggers to cash in. The same medium that's a window into cultures, the minds of people everywhere, the basis for a global community is being pimped for its ability to make your no-name business Googleworthy, to make you famous, rich, popular, secure, with little effort. And without a heart. See you there.

Blog and Get Fired - In Retail

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 01:38:00 +0000

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - Lampoon your boss and you might get away with it. Malign the company, and it's brand, and find yourself filing for unemployment. See the Woolamaloo Gazette for more about Waterstone's treatment. I'm sure this noisy dismissal produces great press for the posh bookseller.

Blog to become Murder Evidence?

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 18:37:00 +0000

Back in 2003 I wrote this fictitious news story, trying to imagine the role of a weblog in an ongoing crime:

Outlaw Blogs Kidnapping of Baby Jane Doe. The blogger known as Adam Adam Adam continutes to post pictures of a scared little girl. A3 posts via mobile phone, Internet cafe, public library, and the occasional dial-up while evading a national dragnet. FBI asks Attorney General to lock down the blogosphere. Senator Grubb filibusters.

Now we have a case of a daughter allegedly conspiring with her mother's alleged killer.

In Deadly Blogging, Elliott Back documents how Rachelle Ann Monica Waterman poured her heart out in her smchyrocky LiveJournal. And reported her mother's death. And the police seizing her computer. And her arrest.

As the blogosphere grows past the 10 million mark, it starts to look a lot like a big city. In any big population, there will be all manner of human behavior. Including murder.
Her weblog will be used to convict her, just like a paper diary. If not in arraignment, or in court, then in the media.
Since this diary is in public, will it affect the jury pool? Will the comments?
Will commenting in her diary put you on the suspect list?
If you were on her buddy/friends list, were you contacted by the police?
If you left a comment encouraging this unbalanced 16 year old to act out, how much are you legally culpable?
Imagine a crazy person reads your whining, and does a violent favor for you without asking.

Blog and Get Sued

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 01:18:00 +0000

Blogger Jason Kottke writes about the television show, Jeopardy, posting audio clips and transcripts of interesting events, like Ken Jennings winning streak. Jason promptly finds himself on the wrong end of Sony's Department of Legal Intimidation.

Blog and Go To Prison

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 07:07:00 +0000

"Reporters Without Borders has strongly protested against the Iran government's relentless efforts to stifle free expression online after the arrest of five webloggers in less than two months, the latest on 28 November 2004."

Dariush (http://www.dariushkabir.com)
Omid (http://www.shurideh.com)
Payvand (http://gayaneh.net)
Mojtaba Saminejad (http://man-namanam.blogspot.com)
Farid Modaressi, (http://farid.blogset.com)

Reader Rats Out Blogger to the Feds

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Wolff) — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:35:00 +0000

anniesj posted a typical rant against incumbent George W. Bush. A LiveJournal reader called the U.S. Secret Service who promptly followed up. Knock on door, nighttime visit, permanent FBI file.

"I want you to tell your friends to be CAREFUL about what they say on the Internet, because someone IS reading it and it CAN come back and bite you on the ass. And as nice as the Sekkrit Service dudes were (and honestly, they WERE very nice – we even gave them coffee and shit, and they laughed with us and were generally very cool about the entire situation), you don't want them coming to your house. It's just not very fun. Because …
"What you say on the Internet can affect your real life. Due to what I said online, I now have an FBI file. And due to certain policies that a certain administration has instituted, I could now be placed on the government's "no-fly" list, could be subject to random searches of private property without my knowledge or permission, and could be subject to wiretapping surveillance. I doubt that any of these things will happen (except with the "no-fly" list – according to my attorney, that's a strong possibility and is something we are looking into), and I could just be being paranoid, but after the Secret Service showed up on my doorstep, I think I'm entitled to a little paranoia. Because shit, I never thought THAT would happen, either. So be aware."