Thursday, October 01, 2009

Now I'm thinking I shoulda given the cats pseudonyms

A blogger whom I read every day and really admire has deleted her blog. A person she used to work with found it and threatened legal action over some of the stuff she wrote, even though she named no names. I'm assuming the legal action is over the fact that she wrote about how her co-workers were pretty much useless jerks. (I'm not going to use her name or the name of her blog here, just in case - her co-worker may have found her blog by googling her name.)

I don't even know what to say about this. I write pretty scathing stuff about family members and co-workers on this blog all the time. And here's the thing: I really don't care if someone in my family finds what I've written. As far as I'm concerned, what I write here is the truth, and if somebody doesn't like it, they can go piss up a rope.

But my co-workers? I have to work with these people every day. And while, again, what I write here is the truth, I would certainly not want to face "legal action" over it. It's just a blog, for Pete's sake.

So where does the line get drawn? It's okay to dis your family, but not the guy at the next desk? Even if you don't use any names, you can't write about the people you work with? I mean, I think we all know what it means to get dooced, and it still seems insane that someone could get fired over a blog.

Maybe it's not "just a blog", after all.


Oh, and when you google my name, it does not lead you here. But when you google the cat's names? Bingo.

5 comments:

Rob said...

Interesting point. I make fun of former co-workers, but don't name them and I really doubt that they'd recognize themselves if they happened across my blog. I don't make fun of friends, because most of them read the blog, and I don't want them pissed at me. It's too bad we live in such a litigious society. Don't know what I'd do in the same situation.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your support! Use pseudonyms! It's just so much safer!

Pauline

rockygrace said...

I'm so glad you came back, fairy dust!

Oh, and it's a lot nicer typing "fairy dust" than it was typing "FART!!"

:)

Shana said...

I wrote some truthful things about some of the parents at my daughter's school a while back. The title of the post was ASSHOLE PARENTS, so that kind of sums it up. My husband just about had a coronary when a girlfriend of mine brought it up. Hubs does not read the blog, and the girlfriend said something at dinner along the lines of, wouldn't you just die if they found your blog? Um. NO. It was all true, and no names were named. I'd probably feel differently about coworkers that I HAD to maintain a relationship with though. Lucky me, no coworkers!

rockygrace said...

"Asshole parents" - Classic!