It's hit the fan, but may turn out to be a good thing: "Scholar under fire for racist blog entries"

Updated 18 Apr 05:
- Compilation of related posts/ conversations at From a Singapore Angle
- Huichieh's a He, not a She. I apologise for the mistake.

I was having a brief IM chat with Preetam earlier, on how blogging is viewed with suspicion and uncertainty by some people. Like him, I've been trying to promote blogging as a legitimate tool to fellow colleagues. Most are receptive, though some are still rather wary.

I asked Preetam if we should start a blog conversation to share experiences on this, and he said OK. As a lead-in to that blog post (coming up soon), I refer you to Huichieh Loy's (From a Singapore Angle) post - The storm over CZ breaks on print media. You might also want to read the comments over at her his post. The views are pretty balanced there.

That case illustrates a few points I've been trying to get my colleagues to see:

1. The organisation should take the lead to educate staff on blogging Dos and Don'ts, before staff do anything deemed as inappropriate by the organisation.
2. You cannot stop staff from blogging; some already have, and more will follow.
3. There are "risks" involved in staff blogging. But those "risks" can be managed, provided the organisation is proactive and forward-looking.

To anyone who feels that their children or employees should not blog because of potential negative fallout, that's akin to saying we ban Singaporeans from accessing the Internet because it cannot be controlled, ad because it has porn and misinformation.

Blogging is just a technology. What's more important is how we make use of it.

In a way, it's good that the PSC scholar case has made mainstream news. It would register Blogging in the consciousness of those who have not heard of blogs. The not-so-good part is that it possibly illustrates a negative aspect of blogging. But I believe rational voices will prevail eventually, i.e. people will see that blogging has more potential for good than otherwise.

BTW, I hardly have time to read the local papers. If it weren't for bloggers like Huichieh Loy blogging about it, I wouldn't have known about the controversy. So that's another example of the positive potential of blogs.

[Tag: singapore, blog ethics]