Segunda-feira 17 Mar 2008, 22h:10

This is a direct response to:
http://www.miamiherald.com/430/story/459393.html

Since there were no drug deals, illegal aliens doggypaddling the gulf of mexico, murders or old people dying in hot cars that day, The Miami Herald decided to publish a wankpiece about how the internet is becoming a bully's paradise and the whole problem is anonymous posting. I say he's being a fucken fairy and should stop crying like a bitch and grow a pair. Boo fucking woo, some random jackoff in Oregon thinks I'm an asshole, like I care what complete strangers have to talk shit for. Get the hell over it, how the hell are you even in the media, did you win the Jamaican academy of liberal arts' annual circle jerk and receive a doctorate in shithammering?? You should be flipping burgers for a living and serving me fries you spineless asshole.

Here are a few choice excerpts from the piece titled "We Need Online Rules" *lol*

But on the Internet, public comment isn't kitchen table talk, it's saloon brawl. Postings are sharp and rough-and-tumble. Harsh and derisive exchanges are common. So are personal attacks. Chat rooms and message boards routinely allow people to post comments anonymously. Only when postings are so egregious, so outrageous, racist or vile that other participants cough up hairballs do managers strike the comments and banish the authors.

Oh come on Edward, you're a grown man. Surely you can ignore the cretins. I've rarely seen a message board get SO out of hand that rational exchanges of thought were impossible. Stop visiting the Tourette's/Asperger's boards and maybe you'll see some normality. And your anonymous argument is bullshit since I've seen complete asswipes post the same hatred fueled shit that John Does do. And since you're quick to blame the board owners, I think you're a whistle blower. Noone likes a tattler, where I roll you'll get tossed into traffic for that kind of shit.

So they embrace the rambunctious discourse of the Internet with the zeal of the convert – and the sweaty fervor of the desperate: Got something to say? Tell us!

Editors who would never dream of running an unsigned letter-to-the-editor now argue for promiscuous anonymity.

And taste and civility, respectfulness? Old-line values of a discredited media elite.

OH YEA. The media's ALWAYS been credible. You stupid fuck, the media's been making up news since Julius Caesar got stabbed and they called it a gay orgy mishap. Taste? Civility? Respect? When the hell were any of these a factor in the media?? You need to get off the pipe buddy.

The Organization of News Ombudsmen, a group I admire and to which I belong, has an e-mail thread right now soliciting input on how news organizations should handle public comment: Is it to OK to block anti-immigrant rants, to weed out defamation, to protect privacy and attempt to enforce some standards of reasonable expression? What about unsigned comment?

I don't care if you belong to the Crest Cavity Patrol, you and your fellow liars are going to edit the news however your sponsors' biases lie. If you believed in freedom of the press, you'd be allowing EVERY comment and not deleting the ones that made your pee pee small.

To say there should be rules, that communicants should be admonished to strive for honesty and civility and respect, is not to justify elitism. It's not even to prescribe the rules. But it's to acknowledge that rules are needed, and to kick off the process of writing them.

Honesty, civility and respect? How about establishing those values in the media community FIRST, then worrying how the fuck the rest of us are doing. I've long spat on the impossible idea of an internet police or any similar idea that would require omniscience. In closing, I offer you, your cronies, and anyone who's ever been hurt by an online comment three simple words.

Get over it.