Scripting News: Saving the h-word

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Saving the h-word

Usually I ignore the moralistic snipes that come from a handful of bloggers, but to characterize a post of mine with a term like "hate" is really over the top. The post certainly was critical of a piece of software, but hate is a special word, and should be saved for special circumstances.

My family emigrated to the U.S. during World War II from fascist-occupied Europe. Growing up, my grandparents told us stories of how they fled for their lives and how the U.S. welcomed us. Without that, I wouldn't be here today, I never would have been born, because my parents and grandparents wouldn't have survived. What they dealt with certainly was hate. It was there in NY when I was told by schoolmates that their uncles were killed in World War II fighting for "The Jews." To be blamed for the deaths of loved ones when I wasn't even born was, imho, an example of hate.

Saying that a software system is controlling its users, when it obviously is, is not hate. It's criticism, and it's one of the things guaranteed by our Constitution in the United States. In this country hate speech does not enjoy the same protection. So let's not cross that line so easily. Let's not devalue a term like hate, let's save it for those special circumstances when speech is used to persecute innocent people.

PS: I turned on the TechMeme blocker to be sure this post doesn't appear there. I don't want this to turn into a topic that other people pile onto in hope of improving their rank on the Leaderboard. I'm seriously considering leaving the flag on, because the atmosphere there has turned so acrid.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:48 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

Sep Nov