TechWag

: Image via CrunchBase

The outcome of the internet mugging that happened over the weekend with Leo Laporte blowing up at Mike Arrington during the Gillmore Gang has directly resulted in just one more example of how internet mobs form, and the strange if not horrifically abusive way that people can be when “incited” on the internet.

Unfortunately this has had a direct influence on huge swaths of otherwise decent data to be pulled from systems like FriendFeed where Techcrunch has reportedly pulled its FF page, and where just about everyone has come out of the wood work on this one, even though Leo and Mike made up within hours of the public blow out. While this is not the first time that Techcrunch has been involved in a blow out, specifically Mike being spat upon in Germany, and the blow out with Sam Sethi in relationship to the implosion of blognation, calling for the death of anyone harkens back to the sad and amazingly inappropriate behavior we saw when Kathy Sierra was driven off the network.

Even the most obnoxious people at times have valuable things to say.

While I will not say that I love Mike Arrington, he does live in a necessary and important niche within the technology blogger press. He is successful; he has had his share of mistakes and his shares of success. Even if we hate him, and would salt the earth he walks on, calling for his death, wishing he would get cancer, or a host of other abhorrent comments back both on FriendFeed, on the Techcrunch blog, and on other sites is not going to do anyone any good here. When you wish death on someone, please tell me how this is different from the same kind of inciting to violence that happened two weeks ago with Tiller, the abortion doctor who was killed by a nut job on the steps of his church, all egged on my popular media and anti-abortion presses.

There are nut jobs out there that will when properly egged on do something horrific, like kill someone. It is irresponsible for bloggers, commentators, or anyone else to issue a “fatwa” for the head of Mike Arrington.

Many of the bloggers I know are better than this, many of the people I follow on FriendFeed are better than this, although my unsubscribe from FriendFeed following was melting down this weekend as I just do not want to be part of hate speech. It does not matter who you are, if you are flash mobbing someone, using hate speech and calling for the death of someone, are we really sure we are ready for the social web? Are you really ready to be the accessory to a crime, if not the silencing of a fairly important if annoying voice on the internet? If this is what the social web is about, it can go get stuffed. You can watch the video here of what initially set off the internet flash mob on YouTube or right here. Given that Mike and Leo made up fairly quickly, it should have just died, and not risen to the point where inflamed passions are going to be embarrassing for people later on down the road. Remember, Google always has a cache.