The Balancing Act

Could this be a morality play for future difficulties in the corporate world as the push continues to institute blogs and wikis?



Qu's Marsh

For those who haven't heard, LiveJournal.com, and its corporate parent, Six Apart, have permanently suspended hundreds of accounts without warning or explanation. Investigation from sleuthy LiveJournal users has determined that this was apparently done to delete accounts allegedly promoting incest, but many of the suspended accounts include users discussing Vladminir Nabokov's novel Lolita and support communities for survivors of abuse, LiveJournal obviousy did a pretty crappy job. It's obvious that they didn't make even the slightest attempt to investigate the accounts before deleting them, nor did they contact the users to let them know what the problem was or how they could remedy it. The accounts were simply wiped without warning, contrary to LiveJournal's own Terms of Service (see Section XIV, 2).

Corporations will be under pressure to maintain a level of decorum in the information marketplace and it is inevitable that incidents like this can happen. It is already happening as corporations

• try to block employees from accessing improper web sites and end up blocking appropriate sites as well.
• Use spam filters to block spammers and catch legitimate client emails as well.
  
  

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