“Even inoccuous blogs like Meskelsquare.com have been blocked,” writes Ferenge Addis Blog. “[They're] even blocking meskelsquare from the always moderate Andrew Heavens,” writes Urael who goes on to talk about “the sweetest among the bloggers mes…

I think that bullying and abuse are part of our online culture

the idea of having one’s machine compromised and posting comments or posts that I’d not want to be associated with gives me a bit of a chill.

Ethan, I know it’s a bit nasty to throw someone’s words back at him/her, but, honestly….

First, the “not knowing about the subject.” There’s nothing wrong with not knowing, but there is something wrong with not knowing how immense a gift that is. There’s a whole universe you haven’t been bothered with, but it’s important to understand the universe before saying it’s not (enough of) a bother.

Which is what comes second: cyberbullying is part of the culture and free speech is more important. No. Not because free speech is less important, but because bullying, cyber- government, or otherwise, is NOT FREE SPEECH. What’s going on is hate speech. Hate speech isn’t and shouldn’t be free. But that fact isn’t sufficiently recognized because the large majority of people writing about it are in the fortunate position of not having to deal with it personally.

If the distinction is recognized, the problems regarding speech and anonymity also melt away. We can protect both, and stop tolerating specific threats against people (yes, I do mean deleting comments, posts, and articles that contain them). Even the most extreme viewpoints can be expressed without threatening anyone with harm. Free speech and anonymity can be entirely protected without allowing blatant hate speech.

The last point, about having identity usurped, is something that’s all too real for all of us. The creepiness of that doesn’t seem to be as hard to see. So I’ve included it to make it easier to measure the difference in visibility between “my” problems, and those cloaked in the “Somebody Else’s Problem” field.