A thoughtful yet disgruntled reader sent me a note the other day. Evidently, someone had informed her that something said about her in this blog by a commenter seemed defamatory. By the use of her language she had apparently considered her legal rights.
I have little consolation in the action I have determined to take which is to wipe out the offending comment without regard to the credibility of the person who wrote it or the verity of the claim made. I simply find it a prudent, simple and relatively painless thing to do. However I am still annoyed by this decision because of a brief exchange I had with this reader.
My initial response was basically 'man up'. If somebody lies about you, then defend yourself. If they lie about you in a street where ten people can hear then tell the truth about yourself in the same street so the same ten people can hear you. If in a newspaper, then back in the newspaper. If in the comment section of a blog then back in the same place. She declined to do so saying she has no intention to make any comments in any blog. In that regard, blogs are beneath her consideration. From one point of view, this is a perfectly reasonable and practical position. If bratty children in a playground were overheard calling me a fat man as I walked down the street, I would hardly condescend to find the offending brat and shake my finger in their face. It's the old 'drag me down to their level' stiff upper lip. I would simply have their teacher hush the little varmint. It's certainly not worth my time and effort to go chasing around every kindergarten and stop the lies. After all, teachers do have some responsibility.
But I am incapable of ignoring the lazy hypocrisy of such a position in the public sphere among citizens. If blogs aren't worth taking seriously - if one does not condescend to respond in public how then can such an offense be considered? Either a blog is a legitimate public forum for adult conversation and debate or it is not. If it is not, then there is little here to be respected and therefore little here to be heeded, including and especially specious, insulting claims.
Now, it would seem to me that if I were Hitler and I were speaking in a beer hall among mindless brutes against some innocent, it should be considered foolish for that victim to attempt to make a correction in place. However I was convinced that she saw me not as some rabble rousing fool. Rather she suggested that for the sake of Cobb's continued respectability I might keep a tighter leash on potentially libelous commentary. But that is a burden no blogger can take, rather for the same reasons potential victims of hurtful talk shouldn't be bothered running everywhere Google finds their name in a sullying context to shout down enemies.
Legally, bloggers are generally covered by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, more or less. I can say that here, but what any two opposing lawyers and judge might say on any given day is a bit more arbitrary than my declaration. Quite frankly I'd rather just make the point I am making. The individual in question was not even the subject of discussion and could only be best described as charged guilty by association, as any thoughtful reader could reasonably determine. But the theoretical determinations of reasonable people are beyond my control, as are the hypocritical annoyances of people who would have me defend their honor in an arena they deem unworthy of entering.
This one falls under the banner of wishing for a better public. It ain't gonna happen. Civilization is where you put it, and I'm not putting up my dukes for any of you brittle, arrogant weenies, be you commentor or complainer.
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