huajern: more ethical in relative to what?

there’s this little line i wld like to share: “my right to swing my arms around ends at ur nose”. although it’s generally used for illustrating cases of assault & battery, i do think it helps in my idea of how we can’t possibly go as far as saying “i can write whatever i want in my blog!!”.

as much as we exclaim freedom of speech rarara,etc ..it definitely ends at the point of violating defamation laws and /or ethics.

i dont mind a nice debate but name-calling for no reasons other than “u suck! and i can write whatever shit i want” is frikin stupid.

example: i dont particularly like minishorts but i wont only say shes stupid bcoz she sucks. *i wld state reasons*. ie: coz shes such a hypocrite pretending to be a virgin on her blog and being an over-eccentric english grammar nazi in other ppl’s blogs padahal sendiri alw doing stupid grammar/spelling mistakes.

anyways, not disclosing whether it’s an advertorial or not is only a matter of choice. it’s plain stupid to tell ppl they r cheating bcoz they didnt disclose it purely for reasons of:

1-traditional journalists get paid to write reviews also. how is that different? all that crap we read abt how great this food is how great this product is are all paid reviews in one form or another. most journos have their hands tied to write nice stuf abt those products & services bcoz they r big advertisers in the newspapers/mags.

and do they tell u the review is an advertorial? no ley. most of them dont anyways.

2-a writer/blogger’s integrity is at stake here as much as a traditional media person’s. their readers wld gauge themselves hhow much of the review they can believe or not.

after reading him for so long abt his adventures and whatnots, the readers wld know somewhat what kind of person the blogger is. if they think he’s not trustworthy enough to buy the products he promote, they wont feel cheated anyways coz they wont buy those products bcoz of his promotion.

think about it, why wld ppl buy from ppl they dont trust anyways?

what’s there to cheat?

Yes, it is cheating, and as punishment I sentence you to do an advertorial to get me a cute GF. ;-)

‘Honey, there is simply no space for ethics or credibility on the Internet.’

No Space for Ethics??? Of course there is, or else I’m not a six foot six tall viking named Sven with long hair and a masculine beard and a doodle a horse would be proud of.

‘Until some higher being overrules bloggers in this matter,’

Actually, the usual laws of the land are just as enforceable on the internet as they are off it. So, no making death threats or slandering people etc.

‘I’m the opinion leader of this little space.’

That’s your opinion. In my opinion we’re a consensual oligarchy who have to answer to the senatorial committee that meets every Tuesday to decide what you can and can’t blog about. This of course can be vetoed by the Proconsuls if they have a two thirds majority in which case the senatorial committee must meet again on the Wednesday to decide new and various topics of interest. Any read who doesn’t like the topic will be invaded by our army of rampant mice.

*****

Being serious for a second, Blogs do come under the same laws / rules as other traditional media which is why lawsuits can still be put against someone breaking the law, such as slander, false advertising [ie claiming I'm a six foot six viking for instance] and other things. It’s a common misunderstanding by some people that because they’re on the internet that they somehow are above or beyond ordinary laws. As the police say, there are no new crimes being committed on the internet, it’s just that the delivery method has changed. So, before writing another advertorial, ensure that a disclosure statement is not required by law. If it isn’t, then don’t worry about what people say.