To make a long story short, the sex blogsphere has been shaken by a major scandal during the last few days.
I shall try to summarize the whole mess without going into specific details.
A blog published a few days ago a list of sex blogs which they considered to be the best at the moment. This has been done on an annual basis and this year was no exception, but this time the list contained a blog whose credibility was questioned.
Questioning blogs and their contents are not unusual in the blogosphere and it can be compared to the classical peer review system utilized within in academia. The situation in this case was that the blog that was challenged was written by a person claiming to be a female and sex worker with academic qualifications in relevant subjects.
Those who were skeptical of the blog and its content found after a lot of research that this was not the case. The person behind the blog was a man and the academic merits turned out to be fake.
Personally, I think that lying about academic credentials is totally wrong, and it is also something that is illegal in a lot of countries. The person behind the blog has simply made a huge mistake and the blog is now closed.
Credibility is something that should be questioned and I have advocated this in my previous blog entries – This is what makes the knowledge we try to spread in the blogsphere credible.
It is in other words important to be accountable for the knowledge you wish to give to your readers.
The question now is what happens when you are not credible, and even try to lie to their readers. To me this it’s a clear breach of etiquette and inappropriate behavior.
But what has happened in the scandal that I refer to above is beyond all reason. When the person who lied about being female sex and the academic credentials were revealed as fake then someone anonymously created a website where the identity of the person, who was lying, was revealed – With a picture and a full name.
For me this is unintelligible, and is an act where the credibility should be seriously contested. If I were to reveal the identity of someone in the BDSM community, then I would be banned for all future.
To reveal identity of someone is not ok in any way, even if the person has lied or fabricated credentials. I fully understand that you might feel cheated as a reader, but at the same time; you always have a responsibility as recipients of information – The responsibility to check and make sure you set the knowledge you are given in relation to alternative sources.
The actions that have been carried out towards the man in question might affect his family and that is a third party that is likely to bear no responsibility in relation to the online activities of the man. In other words, the reaction was ruthless and was not in any way proportionate to what the man has done through his deception.
If you find information on a blog that you do not believe is credible, challenge and attack the misinformation with facts. Also take into account the impact that the incorrect information may have. There is information online that is faulty but the consequences of those errors are small, but if there is an obvious danger to human lives, then you should react strongly.
Addressing the person who wrote the misinformation often leads nowhere because the person who wrote the information most often think that her or she is right and then it is better to discuss the details in order to improve them, rather than attacking the personality of someone.