Given the freedom of speech comes big responsibilities

Despite the amount of freedom given to the public for new media platforms,  it is important to know that with freedom of speech comes responsibilities to ones words as information displayed on the net goes global which can create a certain unwanted havoc to a person, company or country. Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is investigating a blogger named Aduka Taruna who allegedly insulted the Late Sultan of Johor whereby the blogger had used insulting words on how the announcement of the late Sultan of Johor was made, His insult led him to an arrest at Kota Baru. Before his arrest, his post received 1,000 comments mainly of dissatisfaction from polititions, polices and publics that made a report on him commenting that his actions were extremely rude and excessive. Upon knowing his post brought distraught to the public, he took down the post and made a public apology which was deemed as an insult instead of a sincere apology which lead to death threats from certain members of the public, thus the blogger was reported to went into hiding at Kota Baru. 

 Image taken from: http://neutraldaily.blogspot.com/2010/01/nasib-berbeza-menimpa-aduka-taruna-dan.html

Public apology by Aduka Taruna taken from : http://www.rohaizad.com/2010/01/24/aduka-taruna-terlajak-perahu-boleh-di-undur-terlajak-kata-buruk-padahnya-terlajak-tulis-tanggunglah-sendiri/

The lack of understanding of the new media rules to the majority of public's on the platform, many are landing themselves into trouble. According to a survey done by Fernanda Viergas on Expectations of Privacy and Accountability, 36% of respondents have gotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogs, 34% of respondents know other bloggers who have gotten in trouble with family and friends. Other than that, 12% of respondents know other bloggers who have gotten in legal or professional problems because of things they wrote on their blogs. (Fernanda Viegas 2004)

According to Jan Schmidt, a blogging community practices and shares a certain expectation and routine on the usage of blogs as tool for identity, information and relationship management. He explains that there is a certain degree of explicit extend which is rather important because it connects to blogging practices to issue of sanctioning and power. Also, there are laws concerning freedom of speech, Terms of Servies of blog hosting services and blogging policies established by organizations to regulate conflicts which can be caused by formal or informal blogging communities such as blog etiquettes, regulations and ethical publishing for example refraining from posting insulting comments and defamation. These guidelines are motivated by procedural rules from other computer-mediated communication formats and is a part of new media guidelines. (Jan Schmidt 2007) 

Figure 1: Blogging practices: Analytic Model

Given the freedom of speech, we as the users of the new media should hold accountable of the responsibility held for the information that we post to the outlets. Users should know these few guidelines when utilizing a blog:

1. Ask Permission for whatever information you outsourced.
2. Use Permalinks
3. Don't Hotlink images
4. Don't sell yourself out in comments
5. Don't be offended when your tag is not accepted in a meme.

 Also, the Authorities should educate and highlight laws, regulations and guidelines for users to follow to minimize casualties that can tear apart a persons life, company and country.

Reference

1. Jan, S.2007. Blogging Practices: an Analytic Framework. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4)[online]. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00379.x/full
2. Viégas, F. B. 2005. Bloggers' expectations of privacy and accountability: An initial survey. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(3), article 12 [online]. Available at: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue3/viegas.html
3. Melanie Nelson, 2009. 5 blogging etiquette tips for blogging begginers. Blogging basic 101, [blog] 17th August 2009. available at: http://www.bloggingbasics101.com/2009/08/1639/
4. Jimadie, S, O,.2010. Penulis Blog Taruna Aduka serahkan diri. Malaysia Kini, [online] 25th January. Available at: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/122836