Posted on 02/12/2005 8:46:28 PM PST by conservative in nyc
Web 'Privacy' Spurs Acts of Deceit Remoteness Brings Decline in Civility
By Lena H. Sun Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 13, 2005; Page C01
When an aide to Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) went online to fuel damaging rumors about the Democratic mayor of Baltimore, he entered a world where public and private boundaries are treacherously blurred and normal etiquette can easily evaporate.
Joseph Steffen, who was fired last week for his postings and chat room e-mails, is a high-profile example of the conflicting freedoms and dangers of the Internet. It is a medium that allows unbridled communication but also seems to encourage a measure of mean-spiritedness.
Like millions of Americans for whom the Internet has become part of daily life, Steffen may have believed that what he wrote online was private and as a result felt freer to say things he would not have said in person. But when his online discussion of the intentional spread of rumors about Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley became known, his "private" statements led to a very public dismissal.
On a typical day, 70 million American adults are on the Internet, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which studies the technology's social impact. Americans send millions of person-to-person e-mails a day, and the content is often fast and loose.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
PING!
Chat room emails? Is there a chat room here?
Lena did some very poor reporting there
In some areas .. she didn't get the facts right
In other areas she blurred the fact into other subjects
BTTT!!!
Yes .. there is a chat area
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/browse
It's to keep those threads out of the News section
But the thread/article in question was not in chat .. it was in news
Gosh darnit! Some of us FReepers would take her article line-by-line and tell her which facts she got wrong... But we can't post full Washington Post articles here.
The MSM mediots fear describing forums accuratly.
Imagine if MORE of the public was educated about what FR can and can not do. Imagine how horrible it is to JUST READ a newspaper story after you have had the joy of disecting it with the rest of the world, literally, and expose holes in the poor MSM writing and intentional propaganda. Imagin the readership result of papers who allow posting vs those that only allow excerpts of healines.
The more the public start to understand the elegance of being part of internet forums, the better.
"a high-profile example of the conflicting freedoms and dangers of the Internet. It is a medium that allows unbridled communication but also seems to encourage a measure of mean-spiritedness."
They are so terrified of the internet .. they have resorted to character assassination. How clever of them. I love the words "dangers of the internet" - it sounds so cloak and daggerish. And .. of course we must not forget the stand liberal word for conservative = meanspiritedness.
The only danger is that conservatives will ignore all the danger signs and allow the liberals to scare them off. As for meanspiritedness .. you can't get more meanspirited than to murder your own offspring.
what tickles me is her assignment of "mean-spiritedness" to the net, without seeing the mean-spirited motive behind all the MSM attention we at FR are getting lately.
it's like coal calling snow black.
"They are so terrified of the internet .."
That was my first impression. Since the woman has her "facts" all wrong and obviosly doesn't comprehend the nets workings, she no doubt fears the unknown.
And we still don't know who wrote those decietful Federalist Papers that were published as letters to New York newspapers!
Exactly!!
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