Plagiarism, Personal Identity Leak, & Offended People OH MY!

I have tried to not post about the kind of bad behavior that is going on in the blogging world. Most other blogs have done a great job of summing it up so why write my own post? All I have to say is that the time has come.

For those of you that are not part of the blogger world, you probably have no idea the heinous crimes that have been committed on your own computer scene.

Let me start out with Plagerizism. Earlier this year a well known blog was found to have plagiarized another blog. Now this person denied it until IP address and matching dates/times proved them to be liars.


I have seen these facts and will gladly find them to post if you want to see for yourself.  However, most of you will know what I am talking about. Those who don't if you ask I will find those links and send them to you. Now the victims have been receiving hate mail saying they are horrible people and they should have never said anything. I am ashamed that anyone would blame the victim , but I have seen this evidence and it is true. This whole disaster is now just dying down. Crappy apologies have been made and the fact that it happened at all is ridculous. I think if a high schooler can understand Plagerizism than those in the blogger world should understand. Right ? Right!

Now we can move on to personal identity leaks. This incident has just happened recently. An author leaked the supposed name, address, family names, and picture in a blog post of a reviewer who goes by an alias as most of us do. She did this to draw attention and rant about how this person's reviews are horrible. I find having all this information all in one place with her alias, if the information is even right , offensive. Unless you are given permission to post that sensitive information by the person it should not be posted. Right? Right.

I am pretty sure that everyone is following me so far. Now onto the thing that has prompted this whole post.

Offending people, I personally don't set out to offend anyone but I also don't lie or sugar coat things. If you believe the only things that should be said are the positive ones, well this blog is not for you. I will not give a book a good review if I think the book was terrible. I try to point out the positive things before the negative but don't feel I need to  lie and make some up to make an author feel better. This won't do anyone any good. Who wants to read a book a reviewer has suggested when you know the reviewer is a habitual liar? I don't, nor would I, recommend a book I did not enjoy or think the person I am recommending it to would not enjoy. Honesty is the best policy. Sadly some authors want are gaming the system by asking those who did not like the book to delete their review. This is dishonest and those authors who do this I will not promote any of their work. I think most of us can agree with this.

The waters get muddy when it comes to those we personally know and may mention on our blogs. Now no one will care if you sing their praise,right? Right! But what happens when you post something about them that they find offensive because it hurts their self image in their minds? Did this blogger do it on purpose? Was it meant to be a personal attack, or simply the bloggers opinion due to what the blogger feels? Now let's say that this thing said was not actually linked to a name but a title, say cousin. Now if your cousin tells you that they are offended for putting something on the blog linked with the title cousin do they have the right to ask for it to be deleted? Or maybe edited ? Let's say the blogger does not see it as a personal attack since names or addresses heck not even pictures are in evidence, do they still have a right to ask you to delete a post?

I personally do not see this as an excuse to delete a blog post. I mean it may vary from instance to instance but if an actual name isn't given and the post isn't being malicious than what does it matter what the blogger thinks? Are we as a society so caught up in what others think of us that we can be offended by a mere paragraph "stating" your title?  Do you  mean to say that the blogger is absolutely 110% responsible for what others will think if seen? How many people censor their Facebook? Do you ever say that you had a shitty day? Yes, I am sure most people do. Now if you interacted with someone else that day does that mean that the person who you interacted with should be offended you had a shitty day? No! Ridiculous. Don't you have a right to say it without worrying about offending people? Yes you do.

Those of you who don't agree and find this offensive, do you go around telling people little things here and there that bother you? Do you ever say anything negative about others? I am sure you do. Heck, we are all human. Now why is it okay to say something negative but not to type it? It still gets around. It is still said. But that's the thing. For some reason some people think it is okay to talk about things but heaven forbid you actually post them because then you mean them. Hypocritical if you ask me. But everyone is allowed their opinion. 

I want to know if you think that you should have to delete a post if you were to offend a family member because they knew you were talking about them due to the title used and instance?


-Amanda