Codes are for breaking

Should bloggers sign up to a voluntary code of conduct? Only if bears promise to clean up after themselves. You can no more regulate blog content than ask estate agents not to fib.

The hard core have been banging on by the Tetrabyte about everything from Star Trek to the price of modem upgrades for years without so much as a backslash. Okay, so the new wave of beardless ones have occasionally been sacked for posting stuff better suited to the pub after work and a few heads have rolled on Capitol Hill, but never before has speech enjoyed so much freedom.

Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine touched on this recently when he said most bloggers tend to publish first and edit later and leave the refinements to others. That’s true so long as we’re happy knowing that the truth probably lies somewhere at the end of a link.

But it also brought home to me while taking part in a defamation forum last week how our laws have not kept pace with media consumption. More on this later when I’m not about to jump on a train.

It is an important issue. Only a matter of time before someone tells us we’re drinking in the Last Chance Internet Café