Ben Hammersley’s Dangerous Precedent - L’affair Niall (from: PubSub: Scoble)
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Weblog: Ben Hammersley’s Dangerous PrecedentSource: L’affair Niall
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L’affair Niall has caused a little of a stir in the blogosphere lately. As Niall Kennedy, and his boss Dave Sifry have explained, Niall removed a private weblog posting on the behest of his employers. The reasons, and the controversy, are quite involved - but the word censorship has raised its head a few times, and caused a slight hysteria that I don’t really want to join.
But it brings up an interesting point about the position of the employer over an employees personal weblog, when that weblog talks about the same work that the employee is paid for. There’s a very strong case to be made for an employer’s control over such a weblog, even if it is written entirely outside of company time. Why? Well, a personal weblog on a professional topic creates a whole new balance of power between the employer and the employee. Both gain reputation from the blog: If average person x blogs about his work at hot company y, person x gains hotness from that company. If hot person a goes to work and blog from average company b, the company gains kudos in return.
This requires a balance. A weblog is a long and powerful resumé, and no matter how little Niall, say, might mention it, his reputation is ever increased by his overt relationship with his employer. His own personal brand and that of Technorati are forcibly linked in public by his own choice.
This interlinking can be seen all over the place. And it works to the blogger’s advantage most of the time: Scoble going to Microsoft or Russell Beattie joining Yahoo, being good examples. It wasn’t “lucky Russell”, it was “Lucky Yahoo”.
Both the employer and the employee feed off each other when the employee makes his job publicly known. And because the flow goes both ways, it seems to me that either side should be able to hold the other to account.