The Compulsion To Tell All

Bloggers are getting in trouble for confessing their sins to the web community

by: Kassell Pierre-Jean

Rachelle Ann Monica Waterman is a 16-year-old girl who created an online journal, titled “My Crappy Life: The Inside Look of an Insane Person.” The blog detailed her life in the small town of Craig , Alaska on Prince of Wales Island . Waterman complained about being bored with her life and frequently expressed disdain for her mother, Lauri Waterman, whom she sometimes referred to as the “female parental unit.”

Waterman’s last entry, dated Nov. 18, 2004, read, “Just to let everyone know, my mother was murdered. I won’t have computer access until the weekend or so because the police took my computer.”

The  Alaska State Troopers’ press release dated Nov. 20 said that Waterman, and alleged accomplices Jason Arrant and Brian Radel, admitted to being involved in Lauri Waterman’s murder. They are all currently being charged with first degree murder.

Blogs, short for Web logs, have become an Internet phenomenon and gained notoriety since last fall when blogs cast doubt on the authenticity of the Bush National Guard memos from the CBS Network on Sept. 9. Mainstream society has become more aware of the blogging trend, and as the trend expands, bloggers are exhibiting a compulsion to “tell all” about their lives.

Craig Johnson, associate professor of psychology at Hofstra University , said people view blogging as an opportunity to be more open.

“[The Internet] enables people to talk about things they wouldn’t normally talk about,” Johnson said.  “Even though their identity is known to some extent, it’s more protected than face-to-face interaction.”

Livejournal.com, a free Weblog site, has a feature that can restrict viewing access to those designated as “friends” but recommends that the user have an updated Web browser and Java Script enabled.  Most blogs, however, do not have this feature and are accessible to anyone scouring the Internet.

“Just remember there is nothing personal about a blog,” said Jonathan McCarthy, professor of online journalism at Hofstra. “So if you write it, be prepared to share it with the world.”

Livejournal hosts an unofficial Hofstra blog that serves as a community where various bloggers can join and post their thoughts on Hofstra-related topics. Even the official Hofstra Web site enlisted student Michelle LaNoce to blog about her summer 2004 experience as she trekked across Western Europe with her professor and fellow New College students.

Waterman is an extreme case of a “tell all” blogger whose personal details may have gotten her into trouble, but cases of ordinary citizens suffering consequences of blog blabbing are constantly popping up.

The San Francisco Chronicle covered the recent trend of fired bloggers in late January 2005. Bloggers all over the net—from the anonymous “Papal Bull” site to freelance writer Curt Hopkins—have kept updates on who gets fired, who gets suspended and whose juicy, detailed blogs disappear mysteriously.

Mark Jen is an example of a blogger who may have told too much about his job at Google.

The 22-year-old University of Michigan graduate was hired to work at Microsoft Corporation as a program manager right out of college. After 18 months, he left Microsoft to join Google, which he viewed as “a small start-up family.”

“I was just too excited,” Jen wrote in his blog. “I thought I was going to start new initiatives and improve existing ones…I thought I could make connections to real people in the outside world and get first hand feedback. I thought Google would love it.”

Then Jen added, “I thought wrong.”

After a Google ski weekend retreat, which he also blogged about, one of Jen’s managers called him into his office. His manager warned that people knew about his blog and suggested that he take it down. Jen immediately complied and unpublished his posts. Once Jen followed his manager’s orders, he began investigating Google’s blogging policy and went through his signed non-disclosure agreement. Since Google had no blogging policy, Jen determined that he had not violated his non-disclosure agreement, and began blogging again without the job description details.

On Jan. 28, only 11 days after Jen began his new job, he was fired for “telling all” about Google.

Jen’s managers said, in an interview with Gelf magazine, that “his blog had upset some people” and as a result, he needed to be fired.

Jen said he did not value blogging more than he valued his job: “I’m not insubordinate,” he said. “If I was told to shut down this blog, I would have.”

Joyce Park, a former Web developer for Friendster, said she was fired for mentioning her company in two specific posts. Though, in her Aug. 30 entry she noted the irony: “Friendster, of course, is a company that is all about getting people to reveal information about themselves,” she said.

Heather Armstrong of dooce.com has coined the term “dooced” to define the world of dismissals for blogging. Armstrong—who says she was one of the first bloggers to be fired—was terminated from a Los Angeles Web design firm for writing exaggerated, funny stories about people in her office.

Former Delta Airlines flight attendant Ellen Simonetti was dismissed for posting “inappropriate” photos of herself in her online diary. Simonetti resized all the posted photos of herself so her employer could not be identified by the pin on her uniform. She calls her photos “innocent and playful representations of a grief-stricken 29-year-old.” She posed on board a Delta plane before a flight, showing off a bit of her bra and cleavage, sitting on top of one seat with her legs stretched out across two other seats and with a rear-end view of her pretending to do an overhead luggage bin check. Simonetti was careful to refer to her employer as “Anonymous Airlines,” and did not mention her name or home terminal, Atlanta, the main Delta hub. Simonetti said she has filed a sex discrimination and retaliation complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and recently submitted an official appeal to Delta to get her job back.

In her CNET column, Simonetti said, “The reason I started my blog in the first place was as a form of therapy...It was much easier to write about my feelings than talk about them.” But after working for Delta  nearly eight years, her therapy got her discharged.

“I felt my rights were being infringed upon,” Simonetti said, “and I decided to fight back.”

Simonetti serves as deputy director for the Committee to Protect Bloggers along with Director Curt Hopkins in an attempt to raise awareness about bloggers in trouble—not just fired bloggers, but those who have been jailed, threatened or persecuted in other countries.  She also runs The Bloggers’ Rights Blog, which keeps track of companies that have terminated or reprimanded employees for their personal blogs.

Blogging could also affect college students, especially those who live with others in dorms. Former Hofstra student Christine Haskell was called to the Dean’s Office because her roommate filed a complaint about Haskell’s livejournal posts.

“I went and talked to the assistant dean of students and he agreed that it was absurd,” Haskell said.

Melissa Connolly, assistant vice president for University Relations, said blogging is a fairly new realm in which Hofstra has not considered taking disciplinary action against students.

“Students have every right to express their opinions in whichever way they like,” Connolly said. “We’re a college where we encourage exploring freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Our faculty encourages that.”

But lack of disciplinary action against students who blog about professors or other students does not exempt them from charges of libel. Bloggers—students or not—can only be prosecuted for libel if a publication falsely damages a person’s reputation and has caused that person irreparable damage or harm. Libel covers both printed and electronic publication.

“The Guide to Pride, [Hofstra’s student handbook], contains two references to libel,” Connolly said. “Those would be the statues applicable to blogging, but in no way different than they are applicable to any other form of public communication.”

Employee bloggers should certainly check company policies and ensure their online diaries are kept private to avoid unnecessary penalties until a clear legal precedent is set.

“At my next employer,” Simonetti said, “I would make sure to ask about a blogging policy before deciding to keep a blog or not.”