The next time you find yourself wanting to add a comment to a blog post think twice about what you write. A man in St. Louis recently resigned after his management confronted him about an obscene comment he left on a blog post at the site of the St. Louis Post-Dispatcher. The comment was vulgar (a one word response to the question “What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten?”) and was deleted immediately. The commenter posted it again, though, and that’s when things got interesting. The blog editor, Kurt Greenbaum, looked up the commenter’s IP address, learned where it was coming from and called the location (a local school) to notify them. The school’s IT person had the time and did a bit more legwork and determined it was a school employee. When confronted, the man resigned on the spot.
Most people have a perception they can function online with as much or as little anonymity as they want, that it’s up to them to decide how much they want to reveal. The truth is, though, unless you’re taking very specific, active measures to protect your identity, it’s not too difficult for someone with the the time and desire to find out who you really are. That said, there’s an trust between blogger and commenter, often codified in a site’s terms of use, that the blogger will never use the commenter’s IP, considered personal information, to identify them. Ban them, sure, if necessary, but what Kurt Greenbaum of the stltoday.com site did shattered that expectation of privacy and brought into question his integrity and that of his company.
Greenbaum has so far been unapologetic about his actions, insisting they were appropriate and that he’s not responsible for the man losing his job. He’s right about that. The man resigned, he wasn’t fired. But the first part, the appropriate action stuff? Yeah, totally in the wrong. Kurt has compromised the trust any of his readers had in him and the St. Louis Post-Dispatcher. For his efforts in undermining the trust of his readership and setting an awful precedent, Kurt Greenbaum is awarded one Fizzle-Pop™ brand Fizzle!
If you knew your employer could be contacted because of a comment you made on a blog, how would this affect your online activities? Did Kurt do the right thing here?
Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 8:40AM