Personal Response on Current Affairs

This is my sixth response to current affairs, which is on societal issues. The article was taken from The Straits Times, 3 August 2007. The author of the article is Aaron Low.



Off with the mask—come out and blog

Background

The article is talking about the writings of many bloggers, and how influential they can be. It also talks about the issue of anonymity in blogging, which many people take advantage of, for both good and bad purposes.


Response

With the recent new era of blogging, it is no surprise to see many of my friends take up this new “sport’. Many enjoy blogging about their everyday encounters, as well as their thoughts and ideas on things. However, we will often come across certain “junk posts”, fulfilling no purpose other than to insult people or to put people down, and often very easily.

Being a regular blogger myself, I understand the pros, as well as the cons of blogging. Blogging is not without its prices. If we do not practice discretion, and say whatever we want, it is certain that we will get ourselves into serious trouble. Just like in reality, when interacting with others, even if we feel very strongly about something or someone, we do not say it outright, because we know that the time is inappropriate. Similarly, it should hold the same for blogging. Blogging, after all, is merely a means of expressing your ideas online.

In the perspective of a blogger, we probably feel that we have every right to express our ideas and thoughts. After all, we have been granted individual liberty, so we should make full use of it. We blog on everything that comes to mind, be it complements or insults. Even for me, it is difficult at times to hold back what I want to say, and occasionally I do post certain things that are unpleasant to others. Nevertheless, certain comments would definitely cause conflicts to occur, sometimes with undesirable consequences. This has been proven from the few blogging incidents which resulted in students being expelled.

A likely reason why so many harmful comments have appeared online is because blogging offers a lot of anonymity. People enjoy this anonymity as they do not have to be accountable for their actions, and can blog without fear. However, this fearlessness is precisely the reason why so many harmful comments have been openly posted online. Astonishingly, even when caught, these bloggers do not admit to their posts at all.

If one has written something, why is he afraid to stand by it? It is his own work, and he should be prepared to support it. It is assumed, of course, that the bloggers have thought critically about what they are going to write before they actually do it. Thus we assume that they should be able to defend their own writings. However, many a time bloggers do not really think through their words, but merely comment on whatever comes to mind. Then, when they are caught, they do not admit to what they write, because they did not really think through their own arguments, and thus it would not seem wise to support such an argument.

The best way to solve this problem would be to reveal our real identities. Only then will we write seriously, with facts to back it up. When the need arises, we can defend our arguments without fear. In the end, discretion is the most important tool in communication.