The Radio Audio of blogging civil servants, and Miss Wagstaff on Facebook
In case you missed the discussion on 'Good Evening Wales' about recent events in the Welsh blogosphere and Facebook, Matt Wardman has kindly placed the audio on his blog.
We were talking about the restrictions on blogging Civil Servants in Wales, in the light of Miss Wagstaff’s expulsion from Facebook.
I’m delighted that Peter Black AM was more controversial than I was. Welsh Assembly Government “stalinist” indeed - ouch!
The only missing point that perhaps needed to be made was a detailed one that the Christopher Glamorganshire sacking case happened before the “Principles for Participation Online” were officially adopted in England.
I also didn’t get the chance to suggest that the Welsh Assembly Government are perhaps having their internal culture inspired too much by the Torchwood programme episodes set in the 1940s. A problem of working too close to a film set, perhaps.
Peter Black’s final point about the need for consultation with employees is excellent, and it seems to me that - if the Welsh Assembly Government can adopt the Civil Service Code itself with virtually no changes - then it can’t be very difficult to adopt a 79-word set of principles (warning: pic of Government Minister at end of link !).
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8 comments:
so maybe Labour's sudden withdrawal from the welsh blogsphere was more strategic than it appeared given all that's happening at the moment.
You are right!
A campaign to silence is afoot!
Wales must resist this.
Nobody is exempt Pippa!
Young people take notice!
A sensorship campaign is here.
We must not let it happen!
Now is the time to protest!
You must lead us Pippa
Against those who silence us.
We need free speech
Not a gag on democracy!
Hopefully those offended by the egregious conduct inflicted on Pippa will take the time and trouble to write letters or otherwise protest the despicable actions by Facebook in response to plainly false accusation that Pippa was using a false identity.
The audio is well worth a listen. From the talk on Welsh blogs this government and its management have a lot more to go in terms of transparency. So much for their intentions when the institution was first created.
What's happening with the Christopher Glamorganshire story? Any developments as there's nothing in the media.
It was good to hear Peter standing up for bloggers again. Keep it up Peter.
Dr Wood,
This makes me wonder how many on Facebook are actually under a false identity. Surely they couldn't delete them all as it would make their statistics less impressive when it comes to marketing etc. Think I once read that this makes up a third of members.
Pippa
P.S. have always enjoyed reading your comments on the blog of Glyn Davies.
Thanks Miss. Wagstaff - for your kind words.
It worries me that some bloggers feel intimidated by the WAG - I seem to recall one Welsh blogger commenting that they feel they must use an 'alias' because they are worried as a service provider in real life (rl) that they risk being blacklisted if they revealed their rl identity.
As far as I'm concerned Welsh bloggers who use a recognizable alias are actually providing their real identity albeit on the cyber realm of reality; meaning, I would be no wiser knowing their rl identity verses their blogosphere identity. This might sound daft, but given that more people in cyber world know, for example, Valleys Mam than those who know her/him in the real world. It's not that the cyber/real worlds are overlapping, but rather they are distinct - distinguishable from each other. It’s a bit like some Trademarks, as we get more familiar with a specific Trademark it takes on a different meaning/relationship in our mind and can even become a verb – take Xerox, a Trademark, but some people start to use it in everyday life, “please Xerox this”. Likewise for “Google” – “Google XYZ”.
It’s so important for democracy that those who contribute to political debate are not discouraged from doing so regardless of whether their blogosphere ID is the same or different from their rl ID and especially so with respect to well known blogosphere IDs like Valleys Mam. This is an issue, imho, that’s worth fighting for. I think we can make the case that as a human species we are evolving on the cyber plane faster than on the rl plane; put another way: our outward (behavioral) expression (verses physical outward genetic expression) is evolving at a rapid pace. Members of the WAG are clearly not getting this.
Please excuse use of American spellings and ramblings – I’m dog tired.
Anyways/milliways, thanks again for your kind words.
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