Friday, May 01, 2009

Are bloggers hindering democracy?

It would be a hard argument to justify, but that is the argument made within the bi-monthly meeting of the New Castle County Council in Delaware, US. It is reported that Democrat member David Tackett proposed to make audio recordings of all council meetings available on the council's Web page in the spirit of being "open, accessible and accountable" to constituents. But this was voted down on the basis that, as fellow Democrat George Smiley argued "bloggers and other observers who don't routinely attend meetings would anonymously use the audio clips to criticize council members". He continued to say "The Internet is the greatest thing in the world to find information, but every day someone's reputation is destroyed using it." So it is an interesting question isn't it. Are those who claim to be exercising their democratic right to express their opinions actually hindering information being made public because they might use it to attack council members? Given the activities of Derek Draper and Guido Fawkes perhaps an argument can be made either way on how pernicious the effects are and to what extent the material used is always in context and used to reinforce a point it actually offers evidence of. It is an interesting question though!

1 comment:

Matt Hurst said...

Yes you are Darren, Yes you are...

I think the right of centre bloggers are doing ok at the moment because they are simply saying what alot of people are saying.

It I guess will become hard for people like Iain Dale once they arrive in power, as Labour know the blaming of the opposition for the problems get's you only so far after 2 or 3 years.