There is no anonymity

Bloggers beware: A recent ruling out of Great Britain could severely limit the things you think you can get away with saying on the web.

In a landmark decision, Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of a police officer who is the author of a blog called NightJack.

The officer, Richard Horton, 45, a detective constable with Lancashire Constabulary, had sought an injunction to stop The Times from revealing his name.

In April Mr Horton was awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing, but the judges were not aware that he was revealing confidential details about cases, some involving sex offences against children, that could be traced back to genuine prosecutions.

So here’s the thing. You can blog all you want, say whatever pops into your mind, but you aren’t anonymous and should have no expectations thereof. Which means trolls, for example, should reconsider their potentially slanderous or libelous words before hitting the publish button. Also, don’t blog about your work if you want to keep working there.

Personal story: I used to work for a large telecom company. I discussed my news/politics blog with my VP, and we agreed that I couldn’t write about the company. I did argue however that because we owned news and print publications, they should not be off limits from critique by a political blogger. That was granted, and I got on with my blogging. There were a couple of times that my company did something I wholeheartedly didn’t agree with, and I had to bite my metaphorical tongue. Conveniently, a dear friend of mine worked for our main competitor. She had the same agreement in place with her superiors. So we would often blog about either other’s companies for plausible deniability. Shazam. How hard is that?

Which is not to say I never got a spanking from higher-ups, especially when our corporate communications department mistook me for a terrorist. Oops. But I knew that being a controversial blogger could lead to, uh, controversy. While everyone has the right to speak their mind, it doesn’t mean your every utterance is free from repercussion. That’s why we have libel and defamation laws. And anti-stalking legislation. You can’t undermine other people’s work or life without facts to back you up.

Remember, if you’re not willing to say it under your own name, maybe you should rethink saying it at all.