Image by Todd Huffman via FlickrOne of the hazards of blogging is the process of people threatening you over something you write. While I will not go into details on the case in the event it does turn into a lawsuit, what is interesting is that if the person had contacted me directly, I would have worked with them.

Bloggers are not always right, there are times we get stuff wrong, much like the New York Times, or the Seattle PI, or even Slate, we all have our errors, omissions and corrections. Knowing this, some articles you might get your facts wrong, and that happens from time to time. In three years of blogging, I have gotten my facts wrong three times, and each time I have altered the article and done an errors and omissions article that spells out exactly what I got wrong. That is the right thing to do, journalist or blogger, you work with people to change the story and fix the story if it is wrong.

What I have been seeing lately though is the lawsuit trigger being pulled long before someone contacts the blogger. This is a form of intimidation, thinking that this will get the response that the person wants, rather than working with the blogger. If the blogger is doing due diligence and due care, and is willing to work with people to fix an article that is factually incorrect, then we are doing the right thing. We are doing the professional thing, pulling out the lawsuit and being posturing and threatening is a highly aggressive move that at least with this blogger really does not do much.

Of the three lawsuits over the years, none has even hit the court room, or moved past general posturing, in reality what each of those cases ended up being was all posturing. Frankly, I would love one of these to get past the posturing stage and in front of lawyers if not a judge. I may not be a professional journalist, but the EFF has great rules on being a journalist and being asked to give up confidential resources. None of my sources for the article are secret or need to be protected, I commented on an article on Wired’s danger room. The article has a definite public interest, as the implications for what was being settled has a deep interest to the world of researching malware.

This falls clearly into the SLAPP issue, because the case on wired has deep implications for my chosen field, information security. I will stand by what I wrote, but I’ll also fix the factual errors in the article (which I did by the way on request). It remains to be seen if the lawsuit will still go through, but Chris Brogan also brings up an interesting point, getting errors, and omissions lawsuit insurance.

The idea behind that is that this if you do not do something then that is an error. Insurance pro has a definition that does not work for this, but is interesting as it centers on contracts. Really if we are going to get into errors and omissions for libel or other issues, then bloggers who have to carry this insurance are going to have a hard time blogging. This is why if this goes to court, then I have a real chance to do some neat things about bloggers rights. The Missouri Court web site has an interesting article on this on their web site.

I still wish that people would work with me rather than try to sue me for something I say. That is the important part, if they developed the relationship, let me fix the error, and then own up to it publicly they would get tons of positive support from the community. This sue first reaction is getting to be very dangerous for bloggers, and creates an amazingly hostile atmosphere for blogging and bloggers everywhere.

Tags: sue, lawsuit, libel, wired, danger room, article, anger, reaction, work with me, errors, omissions, corrections, social, management