So, apparently a programmer was fired from Friendster, and the reason given was blogging. I am very tempted to cancel my Friendster account. This is utterly ridiculous.
I originally read about it here. I didn’t have any comments at first, but after this ludicrous comment, I couldn’t stop myself. There are 2 main issues that stick in my craw with that comment: 1) the key phrase is “I have not read the particular offending entries…” Yeah. So go do that before you make an ass of yourself with your broad, sweeping generalizations. 2) Obviously I understand that companies have a right to protect themselves against libel and slander and public revelation of non-public company information, etc. It’s just that I don’t see any of those things happening in this case. Go read the “offending entries”. They’re about as bland as you can get.
Now that usage of the internet is so widespread, there are new and unforeseen problems and conflicts arising all the time. Don’t get me wrong; I think the growth and increasing permeance of the internet is a good thing. Of course, so do greedy corprate-types, but for different reasons. I still believe in the original intent of the Web (I was going to say, “I still believe in the original intent of the internet, but let us not forget that originally, way back when, the internet started as a DOD project [but was soon absorbed by academia, of course]), as stated by its inventor:
The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished. There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our interactions was on line, we could then use computers to help us analyze it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together. (More)
Again, don’t get me wrong, I’m not some Luddite saying the Web shouldn’t be used by corporations for business or a way to make money. Of course it should, that’s the natural progression of things, and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just… argh, I can’t think of the best way to say what I mean… well, I think this guy said it best when he said, “Just like the music, art, and film industries, capitalism (and those quality traits its worshippers appreciate) is going to squat and take a giant shit on the world of bloggers, too.”
Back in the day, before everybody and their grandma was buying an HP Pavilion at Wal-Mart and getting 1 million hours of free AOL, the internet was the domain mainly of a rebellious underground, a counter-culture if you will. (Groan… did I really just use “counter-culture” and “if you will” in the same sentence?) Its inhabitants were, for the most part, idealistic, anti-establishment innovators who sought to tear down the restrictive walls and limits imposed by capitalism and greed… they believe that the internet could help make the world a better place. Inevitably, more and more corporate types stared hopping on the bandwagon, and the whole thing became a little less magical and free-spirited. Laws governing things like “intellectual property” began to pop up. The free spirits are still there, and always will be, but now they are having to fight tooth and nail against… well, people who would fire you for blogging.
Like I said before, I understand the need for laws against slander, libel, etc., even the need for confidentiality agreements. But fundamentally, don’t we have free speech on the internet anymore, on our personal web sites? Isn’t that one of the things its users have held dear since way back when?
JP (the woman who was fired) didn’t say anything bad about Friendster. But, furthermore, what if she had? So what? Can we no longer express opinions? I hate feeling now like I have to be careful of even mentioning in my blog that I work at WebMD. I guess The Man will always be bringin’ us down, and the only [relatively] safe place to rant about whatever the hell you want is an old-fashioned paper journal.
(Note: this was written stream-of-consciousness, in a sleep-deprived state to boot. If I were to spend more time working on it and revising it, as if I were still in college or something, I would have a nice little essay on my hands.)
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4 Responses to "Pontification"
I can feel your sentiment very much, but there is no such thing as “free speech” outside of government action. If Walmart wants to fire you because you pronounce ’shibboleth’ as ’sibboleth’, then by all means it can. If you want to remove a comment of mine off of your blog you don’t agree with, there is no standing for me to sue you.
But, eventually and one day, someone may use 18 USC 241 to sue a company who fires someone over what they blogged. Maybe it’s already happening as we speak. But, I’m with the sentiment that something else is going on, especially if those were the supposedly offending entries.
“Its inhabitants were, for the most part, idealistic, anti-establishment innovators who sought to tear down the restrictive walls and limits imposed by capitalism and greed… they believe that the internet could help make the world a better place.”
The Internet’s original inhabitants, a bunch of idealistic individualists trying to make their own “information niche” in the world, were being anti-capitalist? I think of the Internet (at its purest) as a precisely capitalist phenomenon.
Unless you’re using “capitalism” to refer to big corporations.
First of all, a lot of the words I used when I wrote that are super ambiguous… I was extremely sleep-deprived.
However, I still don’t think the Web’s (not the internet’s) “original inhabitants” (mental pictures) were capitalist. Yes by capitalist I mean big corporations. What do you mean?
Xon has the annoying libertarian tendency to think of all exchanges as the exchange of an object which can be referred to as ‘capital’, for the very reason that there is no such Thing as capital, and thus every thing is capital.