Defend your own mike

Don’t run and cry to Mommy. Yet another call for a code of conduct:

The support for a blogger hounded by death threats has intensified with some high profile web experts calling for a code of conduct in the blogosphere. The female blogger at the centre of the row has been shocked to discover that hers is not an isolated incident….

Ms Sierrra has personally witnessed the usually harmless feuding that is part and parcel of blogging take on an altogether more sinister tone, with threats of a violent and sexual nature gathering pace over the last month.

She agonised over whether to publicise what had happened to her, she told the BBC News website. Since describing the campaign against her, she has been shocked to discover that cyber-bullying is widespread.

“As well as around 900 comments on my blog and hundreds of comments on other blogs, I have received around 300 personal e-mails and about 70% of them say they have been through a similar thing,” she told the BBC News website.

Among the messages is one from a blogger Ms Sierra described as “far more prominent than me” who has been avoiding industry conferences because of persistent online threats.

Why would anyone pay the slightest bit of attention to this clueless moron? Violent rhetoric is a part and parcel of the blogosphere. I’ve received dozens of death threats from a wide variety of sources, to say nothing of the countless threats to never have sex with me from fat, angry feminists. I’m as deeply concerned and frightened about the former as I am regarding the latter.

If you are afraid of words, perhaps you should reconsider the idea of slinging them around with abandon. Go cower in your corner and stay out of the big dogs’ way. As for me, Chuck D said it best:

Anyway and I say the D’s defending the mike
Yeah, who gives a fuck about what they like

Do what you do. Think what you think. Speak what you believe.

UPDATE: Truly pathetic

As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I’m not. I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified.

All because someone photoshopped some pictures of her. What an unmitigated drama queen. Of course, she’s not genuinely terrified or she wouldn’t BE AT HOME AND ANNOUNCING THAT FACT TO ALL AND SUNDRY.

At the very least, she’d announce that she was at home with her Rottweiler, her new boyfriend named Bruno and a shiny new .50 caliber Desert Eagle.

Ockham concludes: media stunt.