Legal
If you want to familiarize yourself with the legal issues and faced by bloggers, you simply cannot go wrong by reading and understanding the articles on this site put together by the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.
Short of that, here are a few short pieces of advice:
You have the same 1st Amendment/free speech rights as everyone else. Freedom of the Press belongs to everyone, not just the people who own presses.
You can be sued for libel. A good generic definition of libel: “A printed statement of fact that is not true and hurts someone’s reputation.” If the person being discussed is a public figure — like a politician, an entertainer, or someone who has thrust him or herself into the public spotlight — then they would have to prove the writer behaved with “actual malice,” which doesn’t mean what it sounds like. It means the writer had to have printed the information with a reckless disregard as to whether it is true or not. ADVICE: Learn the difference between a statement of fact and an opinion. There is a difference between writing that so-and-so behaves like a pimp, and writing that someone IS a pimp. In the second example, you have accused someone of being a criminal, which is always a no-no. Also, try to avoid writing that someone is guilty to a crime before they have been convicted.
You CAN get fired for what you put on your blog. But then, you can get fired for standing up on a soapbox in the park and spouting off. Most people are at-will employees, which means they can be fired for just about anything, While it’s illegal to fire someone for exercising their religious rights, there’s no such provision protecting folks from getting fired for blogging. The fact is that this is rare. Most of the people fired for blogging were fired for blogging about work or about their co-workers. ADVICE: Don’t blog about work or co-workers, or do so anonymously.
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Some rules:- Please try to stay on topic. I am not strict about this, but I will enforce it if the thread turns into an argument.
- Please do not libel anyone. This is not the place to play out personal disputes.
- Attack the position, not the person taking the position.
- Try to use a "smiley" when joking, because irony doesn't come across well in print.
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Posts on BlogPeoria
Neglecting this blog
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Peoria Landmark #326
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Talk on BlogPeoria
Hi Everyone - Another memory -- this one of Miss Cassidy and Gary Johnson...it was probably fifth or sixth grade and Gary raised his hand and said "Miss Cassidy, Sophie just called me a queer" and Miss Cassidy put her hand on her hip and said back, "Truth hurts, don't it, Johnson." We were shocked (More)
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