And now blogs lead to suicide?

I’m not convinced that (largely anonymous) and vicious verbal attacks through blogs are enough to drive anyone to suicide. Maybe I’m wrong, but news of an advertising executive in the US killing himself at least partly because of what was published about him online is a bit of a stretch. And this, as the article notes, isn’t the first time (in the US) someone’s killed themselves because of insults against them published online. Hope none of the judges from Chillies follow suit. And if I had taken Rajpal’s insults seriously, I would have killed myself a long time ago.

More seriously though and as a general point, I keep going back to David Pogue’s sentiments of last year. Speaking of the timbre of debate online, the NY Times renown tech columnist said:

The real shame, though, is that the kneejerk “everyone else is an idiot” tenor is poisoning the potential the Internet once had. People used to dream of a global village, where maybe we can work out our differences, where direct communication might make us realize that we have a lot in common after all, no matter where we live or what our beliefs.

But instead of finding common ground, we’re finding new ways to spit on the other guy, to push them away. The Internet is making it easier to attack, not to embrace.Maybe as the Internet becomes as predominant as air, somebody will realize that online behavior isn’t just an afterthought. Maybe, along with HTML and how to gauge a Web site’s credibility, schools and colleges will one day realize that there’s something else to teach about the Internet: Civility 101.

Especially after the Kathy Sierra incident, there’s been a lot of debate in the US in particular and on various blogs about freedom of expression vs. hate speech. It’s not an easy debate as this article from Ars Technica highlights or this post and the responses to it bring out.

But suicide? I’m not ruling it out totally, but to kill oneself because of online insults sounds just a bit too extreme. I guess you have to be suicidal first, or some sort of a manic depressant, to be affected by vitriolic online content to the degree that it acts as a trigger to take one’s life. Getting suicidal solely because of online content sounds a bit fanciful to me.

I think the larger problem is that in an age when everyone’s first impressions are through Google, content that’s insulting to you online and downright factually incorrect is impossible to delete and for those who don’t know you well, may appear to be legitimate grievances.

If you are the target of hate speech online, I think there are better ways to deal with it than killing yourself, but I’m interested in the opinion of anyone out there who has actually dealt more with this issue, that I think is really quite central to the manner in which we communicate today.

PeaceVoice – New media strengthens the traditional

From Bill Warters blog comes news of a website that elicits short submissions on peace and gets them published in the traditional media in the US.

PeaceVoice gets Peace Professionals, including members of academia and the non-profit sector to submit short op-eds, which it then promotes amongst traditional media and also publishes abstracts online.

PeaceVoice is a project of the Oregon Peace Institute and …is devoted to changing U.S. national conversation about the possibilities of peace and the inadvisability of war.

We are creating a library of previously unpublished articles written by peace professionals and offering them on a daily basis as op-eds to editors of newspapers and online news organizations. Essentially, we are free literary agents to busy peace professionals. We believe that by presenting academically informed opinions that promote peace and nonviolent conflict resolution, we give the public one of the best, and most seriously absent, inoculants against war.

The site introduces the term public peace intellectuals and there’s a link to an interesting presentation there that doubles as a style guide for those who wish to contribute to the site and to op-eds in general.

This is a great example of how new media can play a role in promoting vital critiques and points of view that would not otherwise have made it on to traditional media outlets.

The content on PeaceVoice is US-centric, but there’s no reason why this model can’t work in other countries where there is some free press left that’s able and willing to publish content that critiques the status quo.