Some people have joked that journalists have a tendency to always present "alternative viewpoints" even when the sides are not symmetrical in their cogency or credibility, e.g., "Earth is a sphere, views differ." That being said, this article about the controversy over blogging etiquette, and specifically the Kathy Sierra controversy really pisses me off because of this passage:
That may sound obvious,
but many Internet veterans believe that blogs are part of a larger public sphere, and that deleting a visitor's comment amounts to an assault on their right to free speech
. It is too early to gauge support for the proposal, but some online commentators are resisting.
What the hell does "many Inernet veterans" mean? Are you a veteran if you've been posting on USENET for 20 years, or if you've had a website since 2000? Is many greater than 10, or greater than 10,000? Excuse me, but analogizing deleting comments (which I do a lot of myself) on a personal weblog with "an assault on their right to free speech" totally trivializes what free speech is all about. I know that the writer probably doesn't believe this, but presenting the sentiments of morons without context makes them partly guilty of being moronic. Many people (that is, me) who are veterans of journalism (I've got 4 things in print) feel that The New York Times engages in censorship when it doesn't publish every letter to the editor from me. How do you like them apples? Note: I reserve the right to delete any comments and re-edit them however I please for this post.
