Has Boing Boing jumped the shark?

By Michael Fraase

Friday, 04 July 2008 10:41AM CST

Section: Media

Jumping the sharkBoing Boing was one of the first things I read every day, and not just because it was near the top of my RSS aggregator. It really was a “directory of wonderful things.” Now I’m not so sure. The group publication has disappeared some of its writings. The Boingers call it “unpublished,” but any reference to a former friend of theirs has been purged from the website.

On first glance, this seems like a petty personal dispute that got out of hand. But let’s bracket that part of the issue for the moment. The reasons behind the unpublishing appear to be trivial and petty, even silly. But the unpublishing itself is a much more serious matter. So let’s separate the the why from the what, ignoring for now the former and focusing on the latter.

Unpublishing, self-censorship, external censorship, and redaction all have serious implications for the still-emerging internet media space. Call it the blogosphere, citizen journalism, little-j journalism, amateur journalism, or whatever you like. Attempts to codify the ethics of the medium have been made—most notably by Rebecca Blood in 2002—and are the generally accepted consensus.

This is especially problematic for a website like Boing Boing who has collectively and individually outspokenly championed the causes of freedom of expression, transparency, fairness, and openness in all media and business in general, and online publishing in particular.

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