Back in November 2005, Forbes writer Daniel Lyons made an assertion that blogs were destroying lives of people and businesses in particular by “spewing lies, libel and invective.” He cited Bruce Fischman’s statistics, (a lawyer in Miami for targets of online abuse) “I’d say 50% to 60% of attacks are sponsored by competitors.”
Lyons went on to say that Yahoo and Google were sponsoring these lies by refusing to divulge personal information about the bloggers so that they could be brought to justice in the courts of law (individuals sued by big business … hmmm). In effect, Forbes was actively calling for control of the web space but no such laws or regulations have since been passed. Has the market worked itself out? I personally think so. A firm believer in Adam Smith’s invisible hand, I believe that as long as blogs are not concentrated in the hands of a few- like traditional media is, we’ll be OK because the truth will eventually surface even if it does cause some damage along the way.
Singapore’s own Nuffnang and Advertlets saga showed this- from friendly jibes to low blows, it’s ok in the end because enough people from both sides were around to ferret out the truth of the matter. So I think traditional media simply feels threatened by this new, ever-growing space that is eating more and more into their advertising pie. Wonder what Forbes thinks about blogs now.
More power to bloggers!
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