North Coast Connections

My business is working in courts. My travel schedule this week took me to Ft Lauderdale to attend a national court management conference, and the subject of getting Dooced came up in two separate conversations. The first involved a court staff member working in a self help center who would regularly chronicle the activities and idiosyncrasies of customers on his personal blog. As in many discussions of this sort, the outcome hangs on the context and severity of the offense, and in this case it was clearly over the top. The blogger would comment on the attractiveness (or lack thereof), degree of endowedness (even though there is no such word) and the percentage of obesity of the women frequenting the court service office. He would regularly refer to clientele as losers, tweekers and dweebs, and mock the circumstances that brought them into the court. OK, want to guess what happened to him? (drumroll) ... he got Dooced.

The other example came up in the context of writing on this subject for the purpose of providing guidance to court managers when they encounter blogging indiscretions. While this professional association's quarterly publication runs a regular ethics column, the editors felt this was too important a topic to leave to a mere column. To their credit, they decided to run a "point / counterpoint" piece showing both sides of the argument. After all, courts are here to protect our constitutional rights, aren't they? Yet in the case of the aforementioned Dooced victim, don't court customers also have a right to their privacy and do they waive their protection from ridicule just because they walk into this guy's office to resolve a legitimate legal problem?

And lest we leave this discussion with the false impression that blog authors alone are subject to being Dooced, rest assured that those who post comments on blogs are equally liable for scrutiny by their employers. And frankly, the comment sections of most blogs are way more uncivil compared to the original posting that prompted the comments. Fellow local blogger Eric Kirk recently lamented the lack of civility by those posting comments ... and the emperor of local blogs, Captain Buhne, even stopped accepting comments because they were so over the top. Fred's Humboldt Blog is still allowing comments, but said he would reconsider if things got out of hand.

So be safe out there little cowboys and cowgirls. The classic example of where free speech ends is when someone shouts "fire" in a crowded theater. There are reasonable interpretations of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable when exercising free speech, and I (for one) strongly advocate for less rather than more restraint. Just be aware that personal liability is not limited to a slander lawsuit. We may be talking about your job here.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com