Satanic Verses and Other Tales of the Blogosphere

What does one do with accusations? I am brought back to an incident last August that I wrote about on one of my "Comp/Rhet" blog...a blog that I have admittedly neglected for some time (the first post in the series is called Things that Make You Go Hmmmm). In that blog, I was anonymously accused of politically brainwashing my students. In that discussion with "DK," I wrote a little bit about the ethics of public engagement...in particular, accusations. So, I won't repeat all that here.

The accusation here is that I am responsible for removing one of Nix_Bresser's posts for being "racy" or "provocative," in effect, censoring him, being a hypocrite, and betraying the "foundation" of the blog. So, there are a couple of broad assumptions made: 1) that I am the one responsible for "removing" Nix_Bresser's blog post; 2) the reason for the post's alleged "removal" had to do with policing the boundaries of what is and what is not "appropriate" speech on the blog. The second assumption, of course, depends entirely upon the first being true. It also depends on the author's correct analysis of my intentions and the rhetorical context.

However, his accusation also opens a window to a broader rhetorical situation...one of free speech and censorship, a context that, I would argue, Nix_Bresser is close to...judging at least by the intensity of his accusations. That is, a "frame" is placed on the conversation, or action ("removal" of a blog post) that at once both moves the conversation into a much wider "public," and eliminates possible alternative or local explanations. Ramage might call this an aspect of "self-interference." Or, this might be a good example of a rhetorical analysis that connects the local and the global. Or, it could be both. Just thinking out-loud.

Yes, in the spirit of Ramage, I've digressed...or at least circled around the issue. So, let's get directly to the key issue here. Let me take the second issue first:

• Would I remove a blog posting for "racy" or "provocative" content?

The short answer is yes and no. On our class syllabus, I wrote the following under the section General Guidelines for Blog Postings:

Blatantly offensive, vulgar, or harassing language will not be permitted. I will delete any such postings and you will be given a zero(0) for that week. Persistent harassment will be treated as a violation of the Student Code of Conduct (see your student handbook, The Key) and dealt with accordingly (Mahoney's ENG 230 Course Syllabus, Spring 2006, 3).

Based on the syllabus, I do reserve the right to delete posts if the post is "blatantly offensive, vulgar, or harassing." The Student Code of Conduct is cited to provide more of a resource for what constitutes "harassment." It's a document that all students have signed (and presumably read), making it seems like a useful point of reference.

However, simply citing policy does not stand in for what is at stake in the issue. A policy only tells us what is "official" and what "has already been decided;" it does not always tell us what is right, just, or fair. As we know, policies can be both official and unjust. So, what is at stake in Nix_Bresser's accusations? As I see it, what is at stake is the limits and definitions of "free speech" and, by extension, the tension between individual liberty and the rights of the common--put another way, the right of the individual to do whatever he/she wants and the networks of commitment, responsibility, and rights of "others" as part of a social body. A good question to pose, and an important tension not to forget in the midst of these conversations.

Briefly, then, (finally) back to the issue. I would delete a message on our blog if it directly interfered with another member of our class's participation or met the criteria of harassment listed in the Student Handbook. Part of the "social contract" in a democracy, in my humble opinion, is to maximize participation and to agree not to try to eliminate other voices, opinions, and positions, even when one disagrees. Did Nix_Bresser's post of 3/9/2006 meet the criteria of harassment? In a word, NO.

That brings us to the first issue:

• Did I remove Nix_Bresser's post from the blog?

Short answer: NO. As ehammelshaver noted in her comment, the post is still listed in the blog history as a draft. ehammelshaver offers the following by way of explanation: "mahoney simply turned your entry into a draft, so that amy o'brien wouldn't see it the day she was sitting in on the class." That certainly sounds like one possibility. As I see it, that is one of two possibilities. The second possiblity is that when Nix_Bresser went to publish his post to the blog he accidentally hit the "Save as Draft" button instead of the "Publish Post" button below the Compose box. That also seems reasonable to me since I have done that on several occasions and I have had several students over the past two semesters do the same.

Now we need to get to the nitty gritty. Here's what I remember. On the day that Amy O'Brien was coming to observe class, I put the blog up on the screen. I remember Nix_Bresser (in his IRL form) saying, "you might not want to read mine, because it's a little risque" (or something to that affect). I said something like, "I don't care...You get what you get...I'm not going to worry about it." But I also remember saying "which blog entry are you talking about?" I didn't remember a blog entry that would be so problematic.

Now comes the key issue that maybe other people can help out with. I do not remember ever accessing Nix_Bresser's post and changing it to a "draft." Frankly, that's not my style...I tend to think that when writing for the public, a writer needs to feel even more of the weight of her/his words. That is, a writer has to be responsible for her/his choices. The only time I can remember looking specifically for Nix_Bresser's post was in that few minutes before class on that day. But I seem to remember not being concerned. Again, I may be just remembering this wrong. But I can say without hesitation that I had not intention of censoring or "removing" the post in question.

The only people who can change the status of a blog post, as I understand it, are the author of the post and myself (although I do know that blogger accepts complaints about blogs that violate blogger's terms of use, but in that case, I should have been notified). So, Nix, is there any possibility that you saved the post as a draft? Perhaps we could develop a timeline to determine when, and if, the post appeared on the blog and when it was changed to the status of draft?

In any case, I hope some of my above discussion speaks to the accusations and that we can figure out the specific problem. In the short term, Nix_Bresser can simply go to edit his posts, click on the message in question, and hit the orange "Publish Post" button at the bottom of the page and his post will return to the blogosphere.