21 Aralık 2005 Çarşamba

Another Reminder that a Blog is a Bulletin Board, NOT a Diary

This article reports about a teenager who has been convicted of DUI manslaughter on the basis of a post he made to his blog. The teen was in a car accident which lead to the death of one of his friends. Days later, he confessed to being the cause of the crash on the blog. He retracted and recanted days later - even deleted the post, forgetting about the Wayback Machine and Google Cache which save copies of web pages - but it was not enough to save him from jail time.

Let me be clear. This is not a story lamenting the fact that a criminal was convicted by his own words. It appears that this person received just punishment for what he did.

This posting is to remind people that no matter how private we think our blog, or shoutbox, or bulletin board may be on the Web, it is a public place. Writing a heartfelt posting on a blog is NOT like writing it in your diary, where only you can see it. Nor is it even like writing something on the bathroom wall, where your anonymity is assured. It is like spray-painting it on the side of your house - anyone who wants to can see it and anyone who wants to take the time can find out who wrote it.

My father was a lawyer, and I am sure he'd be quite concerned about the personal and potentially incriminating things people post on their blogs every day.

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