Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Participatory Media’s Impact
Last week an anonymous comment on CNN’s iReport.com snowballed into a web rumor that Steve Jobs of Apple had a heart attack.
Debates abound on whether the following fall in Apple stock was caused by participatory media or the stock market culture. The SEC is investigating the rumor. If the anonymous poster is found to have linked the rumor to trading of the stock there are even more issues than the participatory media versus stock market culture commentary.
Stock fixing aside, the first thing that came to my mind when I heard about the post was the liability of the blogger in relation to writing incorrect information about someone. Individuals are becoming more subject to regulations that have been applied to the media because of the public outlets available. Although spoken rumors are also legally covered, it’s more public and easier to trace when commentary takes place in published atmospheres—including sound and video recordings.
The classes offered on basic law for bloggers are helpful for people interested in writing on a more formal level. But will lawsuits against commenters and cyber bullies join the ranks of those against citizen journalists and self publishers?
