in the realm of the senses
last week, a few of my friends confronted me with an ethical issue involving online journals and the lives of other people. we very briefly discussed my own blog, and TJ was adamant that i should limit my weaves to my own strands and strings. "dapat ikuwento mo lang yung tungkol sayo. wag mo na idamay ang iba," he said. he was surprised how so many people knew about the time he lost it at W grill, and he suspected that i may have detailed it here. my reply was that i didn't talk about about it in detail, except to say that he just lost it there. leo was also interested in finding out more about blogs. "tell me, what are blogs for?" he asked. i said, do you know what blog is short for? he said, "i don't know." genie rolled her eyes in disbelief. "you don't know what blog is short for?" she remarked. there was an expression of exasperation on her face. "am i supposed to know what blog is short for?" leo replied. "well," genie retorted, "you pretend to know everything anyway."
at this point, i inserted myself into the brewing argument, and said, "leo, blog is short for 'web log'. it's really a tool for creating a personal homepage on the internet. but mostly, people use it as online journals or online photo albums." TJ jumped in. "dapat hindi naka-public yung mga entries mo tungkol sa ibang tao." i responded by saying that i don't get the point of making private entries on a blog. if my intention were to create a memory peg of an occurrence that shouldn't be made public, then i would rather just write it on paper instead of putting it up on the net, where regardless of the security settings, people are bound to see it one way or another. i also told them that i used to have a written journal which stopped when the notebook i used got stolen. along with the fountain pen and the bag it was in and the car where i left it.
then leo started asking about libel. i replied, in my usual pedantic, know-it-all stance that "libel is a public and malicious imputation of a vice, crime or defect." "can you be sued for talking about other people's lives in your blog?" leo asked. well, first, the imputation has to be malicious. and it should be the imputation of a vice, crime, or defect. and does blogging fulfill the element of publication? since publication is the communication of something to some third person or persons, then yes, it qualifies. but if bloggers were all sued for libel, how about the companies where their libelous comments were posted? under the law, "the author or editor of a book or pamphlet, or the editor or business manager of a daily newspaper, magazine or serial publication" shall be liable to the same extent as if he were the author. the law does not mention internet of course, but then the law was written even before the age of computers. so will owners of livejournal, blogspot, wordpress, multiply, etc. face raps for allowing libelous entries to be posted on their sites? good idea for a legal paper.
this was not the first time of course that i've been asked about the private lives of private persons and their cameos on my blog. during the early stages of my blog, johnbee remarked that there should be a law against talking about the lives of other people on your blog. a person who introduced herself as candy pangilinan left a message here saying that blogs are subjective and that they do not replicate facts very accurately. my response to all these has been this: i don't talk about other people's lives. i talk about my life. this isn't a tabloid where i propagate false rumors about other people. i am not writing a showbiz column that relies on hearsay and events that have been lost in translation because it has been passed on to several people. when i say, for example, that malvin evicted me from his car last sunday on our way home from batangas because he wanted someone else to hitch with him and not because he was thinking of my convenience, i was not talking about malvin, but about myself. that happened within the realm of my experience. i did not make that up. i did not talk about the life of another person.
i exercise a very brute form of self-censorship. i know that there are things that are not for me to talk about. there are already many things that i completely omit from my blog. i do not talk about the things that have been said to me in confidence. i keep them sacred and secret. i don't talk about everything. i intentionally leave out certain things because they might not be proper for a blog that's read not only by the persons involved, but by complete strangers. i did not blog about my holy week in boracay because i felt that it would have been dishonest of me to talk about an experience and yet leave out very important details, which didn't concern me, but which were witnessed by me. and that's it. that's what this blog is all about. it is a witness to my life. it is a companion on my journeys. it is an aid to my failing memory. i have not forced anyone to read any of my entries. and not that i am driving away any of my friends, but if anyone happens to appear, albeit briefly, in any of my retellings, then that's a consequence of having done something within the realm of my senses.
at this point, i inserted myself into the brewing argument, and said, "leo, blog is short for 'web log'. it's really a tool for creating a personal homepage on the internet. but mostly, people use it as online journals or online photo albums." TJ jumped in. "dapat hindi naka-public yung mga entries mo tungkol sa ibang tao." i responded by saying that i don't get the point of making private entries on a blog. if my intention were to create a memory peg of an occurrence that shouldn't be made public, then i would rather just write it on paper instead of putting it up on the net, where regardless of the security settings, people are bound to see it one way or another. i also told them that i used to have a written journal which stopped when the notebook i used got stolen. along with the fountain pen and the bag it was in and the car where i left it.
then leo started asking about libel. i replied, in my usual pedantic, know-it-all stance that "libel is a public and malicious imputation of a vice, crime or defect." "can you be sued for talking about other people's lives in your blog?" leo asked. well, first, the imputation has to be malicious. and it should be the imputation of a vice, crime, or defect. and does blogging fulfill the element of publication? since publication is the communication of something to some third person or persons, then yes, it qualifies. but if bloggers were all sued for libel, how about the companies where their libelous comments were posted? under the law, "the author or editor of a book or pamphlet, or the editor or business manager of a daily newspaper, magazine or serial publication" shall be liable to the same extent as if he were the author. the law does not mention internet of course, but then the law was written even before the age of computers. so will owners of livejournal, blogspot, wordpress, multiply, etc. face raps for allowing libelous entries to be posted on their sites? good idea for a legal paper.
this was not the first time of course that i've been asked about the private lives of private persons and their cameos on my blog. during the early stages of my blog, johnbee remarked that there should be a law against talking about the lives of other people on your blog. a person who introduced herself as candy pangilinan left a message here saying that blogs are subjective and that they do not replicate facts very accurately. my response to all these has been this: i don't talk about other people's lives. i talk about my life. this isn't a tabloid where i propagate false rumors about other people. i am not writing a showbiz column that relies on hearsay and events that have been lost in translation because it has been passed on to several people. when i say, for example, that malvin evicted me from his car last sunday on our way home from batangas because he wanted someone else to hitch with him and not because he was thinking of my convenience, i was not talking about malvin, but about myself. that happened within the realm of my experience. i did not make that up. i did not talk about the life of another person.
i exercise a very brute form of self-censorship. i know that there are things that are not for me to talk about. there are already many things that i completely omit from my blog. i do not talk about the things that have been said to me in confidence. i keep them sacred and secret. i don't talk about everything. i intentionally leave out certain things because they might not be proper for a blog that's read not only by the persons involved, but by complete strangers. i did not blog about my holy week in boracay because i felt that it would have been dishonest of me to talk about an experience and yet leave out very important details, which didn't concern me, but which were witnessed by me. and that's it. that's what this blog is all about. it is a witness to my life. it is a companion on my journeys. it is an aid to my failing memory. i have not forced anyone to read any of my entries. and not that i am driving away any of my friends, but if anyone happens to appear, albeit briefly, in any of my retellings, then that's a consequence of having done something within the realm of my senses.