Code of Conduct won't Affect Bad Apples

Phil Gomes made an interesting point in his "blogservations" yesterday, noting that Tim O'Reilly's proposed blogger code of conduct will only govern those who already behave in a mature and civil manner online.

Any sort of voluntary regulation, therefore, will do nothing to prohibit or prevent the truly ill-intentioned among us from behaving badly. I doubt a blogosphere code of conduct could have prevented the heinous threats against Kathy Sierra, for example, because those behind the threats would never agree to such a code.

Which brings us back to Phil’s point. He rightly argues that those inclined to sign up for or support an online code of conduct for users of social media are not going to be the bad apples making threats.

Without an official body dictating actual enforceable rules of online engagement, the blogosphere is left to its own devices. Most of us play fair, some of us don’t. Of the bad apples who make personal attacks or leave sarcastic anonymous comments, how many actually escalate the situation to violent threats?

I am queasy of any kind of regulation of online speech (outside of death threats, which are already illegal), voluntary or not. The live web is a spectacular resource for anything you could want to learn about or discover, and a spectacular platform for anything you want to share with the world and discuss.

Anything that could potentially discourage the use of that platform seems to contradict the spirit of the online conversation. And isn’t that why we’re all here?

Technorati tags: Kathy Sierra, Phil Gomes, Tim O'Reilly