Sometimes you have to watch your mouth
Most bloggers like to think that they can write whatever they want without consequence. There are times, however, when a blogger will get called up something he or she has written. It happened to John Cow recently when he used the “C” word. It wasn’t written with malicious intent, but that single word caused such an uproar that some readers vowed never to return to the Cow’s blog. This begs the question: how much should you self-censor your blogging for your audience?
It happened to me recently. I have another blog that focuses on Thailand and my life here. I wrote a post about how Thai people have started wearing pink shirts in honor of His Majesty the King of Thailand. Just to bring you up to speed, His Majesty the King is universally revered in Thailand – and I mean in a big, big way.
The problem came not with my post itself, but with one of the comments that a reader had left. The comment was written about His Majesty the King and Thai people in a derogatory manner, which is as big a no-no as you will find in Thailand. I let the comment slide because I’m not in to censoring other people.
Two days after my initial post was written, I got a call to my office in Phuket. The call came from the Ministry of Information Technology (MICT) in Bangkok telling me to remove the offending content. Naturally, I obliged, because the MICT has the power to block certain websites. YouTube was blocked for months due to offensive videos posted about His Majesty the King.
There are certain topics that I can never write about as a blogger in Thailand. There are some topics I wouldn’t even discuss in public except with close friends. It goes back to the idea of self censorship. For me, if I write about some issues, at best I might offend my readers, but at worst I could end up with my blog blocked.
In more general terms, there are some opinions, words, whatever, that are best kept to yourself. You have to understand your audience. I’m not saying you should try and appease everyone, but sometimes you have to hold your tongue.
The number on rule I live by with my blogging is: don’t offend feminists. I’ve done it and I regret it to this day.
They are watching you.
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2 Responses to “Sometimes you have to watch your mouth”
Yesterday I got a call from Google. But no, they didn’t ask me to remove some content from my sites. They just reminded me there was a slight trouble with one of AdWords features and I needed to replace the code I have on my sites.
Hi Angel,
any chance of giving us the blog url?
would love to be reading it…