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12:05:00 PM EDT
Hearing Come Away With Me -- Norah Jones
Secret Journals -- Or Not
I'm getting a ton of mail asking basically the same question, so let's haul it out right now and whack it with the blunt mallet of truth. The question (in so many words):
I want to write a Journal about my family/my friends/my workplace but I don't want them to know about it. Should I just change their names and/or write the Journal from a different screenname?
One word: No. If you think you're ever going to write about anyone online and they won't find out about it, you need to talk to the various bloggers and journalers who did and then had very awkward conversations with angry friends and family members, or had to spend a couple hours trying to convince their bosses they shouldn't be fired for blabbing about the office in a public way. This all too common phenomenon is what caused me a couple of years ago to posit Scalzi's Law of Online Communication:
Anything bad you ever write about someone online will get back to them sooner or later.
Which makes perfect sense if you think about it. The blog and journal world is about interconnectedness: All those links and comments and people reading other people's thoughts. And of course, everybody's online these days. AOL is famous for having put everyone's grandma online, and guess what? She knows more how to do more online than you suspect (grandma's no fool). So do your mom, dad, sister, brother, children, friends, acquaintances, co-workers and bosses. And if by some quirk they're not online, they know someone who is who will use a phone to tell them you're writing about them.
If you don't want people to find out something about you, or how you feel about them, then think twice about putting it online. There are no secrets in the blogosphere. This doesn't mean you can't write and say whatever you want -- of course, you can. Just be ready to own up to it.
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PEOPLE CAN SAY ANYTHING THEY WANT TO ABOUT MY COMMENTS I DON'T CARE FRANKLY I'M FED UP WITH ALL THE NON AMERCIANS OVER HERE IN OUR USA, I WHISHED THEY WOULD GO BACK WHERE THEY CAME FROM, THEY SEEM TO HAVE GOOD JOBS, BETTER THAN SOMEONE BORN HERE HAS GOT, THEY HAVE NEW CARS, THEY HAVE IT MADE THROUGH SOCIAL SECURITY ALSO...
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i think that the foreign people in our usa ,if they live here they should be made to speak only english, not their language, but the english language as long as they are in our beloved UNTIED STATES OF AMERCIA
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i think you shouldnt care what others think i always express my truth even though it can be shocking.dont hold back a grugde let it out or the thoughts will never go away.
12/28/07 9:32 PM