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I normally don’t write a lot of editorials, especially if they aren’t technology or Palm related since I do try to keep them as close to topic as I can since this is a *Palm* and gadget related blog. But, there is something very disturbing that has been happening on the internet that concerns bloggers that I feel I *MUST* bring to light, regardless of how horrifying and disturbing it is. I hope that you, the reader, will please excuse me and accept my apologies for discussing something that may be terrifying and disturbing. This is normally what I do not like to discuss but in order to bring it out to light and hopefully make others aware, I felt I wanted to write this editorial.

I only found out about this only through Matthew Ingram’s personal blog posting. He’s a writer for the Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada. So, you can understand that this news hasn’t been spread around the net much yet.

As a blogger, albeit, a very small, and relatively unknown one, I am quite aware that whatever I write, post and upload on the internet can easily be accessed by anyone. That can mean someone halfway across the world, or even someone just next door. I am no stranger to the internet and have made a lot of contributions to forums, groups, chat, websites, etc. A search on Google for me won’t be hard to find all the little places where I’ve been and left a comment or two or whatever behind. And I am very much a private person as I do try to keep a lot of my private life private. If someone really wants to stalk me, they can probably easily figure out and track me down since I live in a relatively small town through all the info, pictures, whatever else I’ve posted on the internet from years before. After saying all that and being somewhat aware that my life and info are out in the open for all to see, I am aware that I could potentially be a target, although I can’t imagine why anyone would want to target me. But then, I couldn’t understand why anyone would target Kathy Sierra, webmaster of Creating Passionate Users. She is not only a blogger, but has written several books on computing and speaks at a lot of conferences on technology and well versed in the computing industry.

Recently, she has been getting a lot of nasty comments which turned into death threats on her own blog! But that isn’t all of it. There were other blog sites that were posting other nasty stuff, supposedly coming from well respected group of bloggers, which I find quite disturbing. It makes me wonder about the bloggers that I respect and read daily and whether they are also capable of doing nasty things that I’m not aware of. That gives me the shivers.

I won’t go into the details of Kathy’s ordeal. You can read about it here. Keep in mind that the post is very disturbing so you may want to be prepared for it before you venture.

We are all aware that there are always some kind of “underground” areas in all areas of life, but obviously, it looks like it is starting to come out a lot more in a much more disturbing trend. I don’t watch YouTube because I am aware that there are a lot of sick stuff out hosted out there on YouTube but I only post my stuff because it’s the most popular video hosted site. As most of you know, I have disabled comments and ratings because I was starting to get some nasty comments earlier on, that I knew was going into a disturbing direction if left unattended. Originally, I left them around and they started to snowball with each getting worse. Eventually, I had enough so removed the comments and ratings because they were not constructive or relevant to the product or review and didn’t feel like having to waste time moderating it. So, if you wondered why comments and ratings were disabled for my YouTube video, that is the reason why. I don’t care to be on the front page of YouTube or get that much exposure anyway since my objective was to use YouTube to distribute my videos to help others. I think that YouTube, rather than getting all excited over copyright content, should focus more on the sick and hatred videos that are spread through its network.

So, as a blogger, I can sense and relate to the fear that Kathy Sierra is feeling. Although I have not received any real nasty stuff (yet), I’m quite sure that one day it may come. I just wonder what and how I will react when it does happen.

Apparently, these cyber terrorists have done it before as I’ve read (I’m not sure if it’s in the comments in Kathy’s post or other linked comments on other blogs) so this is not a “one time” thing but something more sinister and obviously getting worse. These people won’t stop with one but will continue until they terrorize the entire blogging community. And that is sad and I strongly belive that they MUST BE STOPPED.

So how to fight back? First of all, bring this situation to light so that the entire blogging and internet community will be aware. Spread the word and link to Kathy’s post so that your friends and others will be aware of this. Don’t let bloggers or targets suffer in silence. As a community of bloggers and readers, I believe we can expose these people and shame them for their horrible deeds. Even if they aren’t punished or tracked down, at least we can somewhat stop them “above ground” from proliferating and spreading this terrorizing disease.

If we don’t do anything, blogging and this interactive and vibrant community that we are all familiar with can quickly dwindle and be silenced. That means no more engadget, slashdot and many other blogs that we all love. Don’t let it happen.

I hope that this editorial will at least help spread the word out that there is evil that is lurking, attacking and terrorizing the blogging community. It’s very unfortunate that we, the blogging community are now under attack.

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