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January 2000 For Your Staff: Using the Web Talking On-Line When visiting jewelry industry chat rooms and discussion groups, speak freely but think first The Internet has been called the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the best advancement in democracy since universal suffrage and the greatest soapbox ever built, on which people freely speak their minds about issues of the day. Yet freedom on the Internet is the snarly sort, with faceless and nameless ranters cyberbashing anyone and anything they please. Truth often becomes the victim. There's a war out there between those pushing the free-speech envelope, sometimes anarchically, and those trying to reign them in, sometimes oppressively. For the mass of individuals and organizations in the middle, you can take steps to help avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Why Care? Surveying recent headlines shows how central an issue this is:
Be Careful Out There If you like to participate in on-line discussions, post as if you're sitting in the living room of those reading your messages. If you write something that disparages someone else, be certain it's true. Don't threaten others with violence. If you're an employer or supervisor and intend to monitor employees' e-mail, establish a policy and communicate it to employees to prevent hurt feelings and lawsuits. If you're an employee, recognize your employer has the legal right to read e-mail you send using company equipment. If you're employed, be circumspect about what you say on the
'Net, or use a pseudonym. The First Amendment prevents the government
– not your employer – from stifling your speech. Though
it happens rarely, and when it does it's sometimes challenged
in court, people have been fired for statements they made through
their personal If you come across a Web site critical of you or your business, try to establish a dialogue. Ask about the circumstances that led to the person's dissatisfaction. Your reputation can only improve if you try to solve the problem instead of calling in the lawyers. If you're concerned that others may be spreading false rumors about you or your business on the Web or in Usenet discussion groups, you can use a commercial Internet intelligence service such as eWatch (www.ewatch.com) or EclipZe (www.eclipze.com). If you'd like to comment about a Web site, a new way is through
a Court of Public Opinion Freedom of speech is both a privilege and a burden. Sometimes what you read can make the hair on your neck stand on end. But it's long been recognized in this country that the best answer to "evil" speech is "more speech," as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote more than a half century ago. The late newspaper reporter Richard Pothier, who spent his
last years as an on-line debater, put it – by Reid Goldsborough Reid Goldsborough is a syndicated columnist and author of the book Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway. He can be reached at reidgold@netaxs.com or http://members.home.net/reidgold.
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