Friday, February 22, 2008

GazunderWatch

Following that little, er, local difficulty last week I've got two weeks' worth of the Gazunder to get through. So I may be some time in totting up the pro- and anti-council stories this week.

Interesting, though, to see our local flying councillor on page 2, telling us that he's on the prowl for a blogger, and claiming there has been a concerted effort to discredit him. He tells the paper: "I have been accused of being homophobic, xenophobic and racist. I've been accused of computer misuse and business fraud. These outrageous messages are affecting my professional reputation. The whole thing has left an unpleasant taste."

Apparently he's now sent a discovery request to Google to find out who is responsible for various posts.

Following a swift consultation with my wolf pack of highly trained media lawyers, I think I'll be turning on comment moderation for the time being!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why not let this drop, if you don't see. the distress caused, so what.

Its clear to some of us that a constant stream comment serves little purpose.

From where your standing its easy to adopt a school boy attitude.

This has has all the hallmarks of something that has got out of hand, and you know it.

It might be worth looking at comments elsewhere.

Richard Eastcliff said...

Well if you're referring to the Doc, anon 1:14, then it's never been my intention to cause any distress, or instigate the kind of witch hunt that has gone on elsewhere in the blogosphere. However, surely he must realise that, coming from a very defined, high profile political standpoint as he does, and not having ever given the impression previously that he was unable to stand up for himself, some, er, mockularity and strong opinions might ensue. Particularly as he has never appeared to be a wilting flower when it comes to giving as good as he gets on his own, prominent blog.

But you're right, it's easy for anonymous blogs to get out of hand sometimes. People might have legitimate reasons, though, for wanting to preserve their anonymity other than for the purposes of carrying out a hate campaign, whether real or imaginary.

Richard Eastcliff said...

I might add that it seems a rather extreme and certainly very costly measure to resort to litigation, when there's that little 'flag' button up there on the top of every blog which alerts Google to offensive, illegal or inflamatory content.

However I can report, rather unfortunately, that no-one's pressed my button in a very long time.

Anonymous said...

1.14 As a casual observer of Thanet Blogs, I just cannot see what all the fuss is about. There have been spirited exchanges in the past between sites and 'bloggers', so what is suddenly the cause of the present furore?

The Gazette today ran the 3rd newspaper article I have seen in 10 days concerning Simon Moores and a 'poster' has stated that a radio item also had Simon Moores talking on the topic. He is making serious allegations to the press and on radio and seems to be the person promoting "a constant stream comment."
Such is the transient nature of bloggers and blogging that new stories and new items will soon replace the interest in 'spats' between certain bloggers and blogsites. The item in today's Gazette does more to attract attention and further comment than comments on a blogsite would ever achieve. There is probably more interest in 'blogging' in Thanet than ever before, as a result of Simon Moores' own comments.

Eric said...

Certain people are publicity 'junkies' & despite their protestations the old adage holds true.

Anonymous said...

And the more people blogging the better eh!? So how are we doing pro and anti wise!

Thom