Universality of Cheese-gate. A Blogger Writes AGAIN

Well, I stand corrected. I've rarely seen such a considered and thoughful clutch of comments on any blog post. How embarrassing for poncy pundit. Too much to comment on so I've done a post. I fully accept that I come from an age before new media, being a preening presenter and professional pontificator. Many did behave like Gods talking down the the little people - though I don't think I did.  

It may also be that, like the shipyards, hacks like me are on my way out - obsolete technology. Replaced by citizen journalists and bloggers. The web has blown open our cosy monopoly of comment. I accept also that the blogosphere is more democratic in the sense that it allows a greater expression of views than in the old elitist printed press that was handed down from on high.  


On the other hand, there was something about the way in which newspapers and print periodicals were edited and created which is worth preserving, if it can be. Editorial discrmination is important in any published medium, and that is what the web is, though most people have taken some time to realise this. This is not just to ensure that what is written is reasonably accurate, legal, fair. But also that it is thoughtful, considered, coherent, elegant even. This is important if communication is not just to become a shouting match, where everybody descends into abuse.  


I think this is what has tended to happen on the blogosphere in the past. But I think things are perhaps beginning to change now, and the character of the posts on this blog may be an indication of that. Blogging is also, like newspapers, going just a little out of fashion, with fewer fewer being created and updated. See"Twitter and FacebookMmake Blogs Look So 2004" . I think one of the reasons social networking has gained popularity is that, unlike blogs, they are not quasi-publications, but are directed at a target audience, preselected. They are about conversation among friends. This means people don't have to put up with the crazies as bloggers do. Really, there is nothing I have come across anywhere in public life that is quite as unpleasant as blogging if you have a recognisable name.


But it also means that the crazies may be moving on. In which case, the blogosphere will become a much more important vehicle of debate and become more of a published and written medium than a conversational one. Look, I know that this sounds terribly pompous and a bit precious, but think about it. If you were following a blog that you wanted your teenage children to read, what would you like it to look and sound like?  

The trolls and cybernats realise that the time is up anyway, because anonymity - which has been the scourge of the web - is itself on its way out. There is a real possiblity following Cheese-gate that order and - dare I say it - a degree of discipline might now start appearing in the blogosphere. Soon everyone will know where everyone lives.

Mega brill. But it doesn't stop all you nasty bloggers putting me out of a job! Wot about the workers!

Universality of Cheese-gate. A Blogger Writes.

     A number of people in Scottish public life are feeling distinctly uneasy following the outing of Mark MacLachlan as the 'evil genius' behind the cybernat blog "The Universality of Cheese".   A lot of politicians, some of them quite prominent, have been posting anonymous vituperation on the blogosphere.  They know who they are - and the rest of the world probably will soon too.  The stuff is there forever, if you know where to find it.   Mark discovered just how easy it is for nosey hacks to trawl through months of postings to find the few incriminating remarks that, strung together, make you sound like a cyber thug.

    A number of people have expressed sympathy for Mark MacLachlan, including the estimable Joan McAlpine  saying that he is a cultured citizen of the world, a man of intellect and ability. That he is not a venomous cybernat spreading vile smears about other people in public life.  Others have pointed out that the things he said were really rather tame and commonplace on the web and are only really offensive when taken out of context.   But this is precisely the problem with the blogosphere - it's so easy to say things that you later might regret - especially when they are mashed up by the News of the World.   And if his remarks were so benign,  why did Mike Russell, his boss, sack him the instant he heard that Mark was behind cheesy blog?

Actually, I'm surprised no one has seriously questioned Mike Russell whether he was aware of the existence of "The Universality of Cheese" blog and MacLachlan's alter ego, Montague Burton.  I can't believe he wasn't.   He is one of the foremost exponents of new media in the party, and was himself into websites and the blogosphere before most politicians and journalists.  He had his own website which he closed down for political reasons.  His blogs have become private since he became a minister.   Mike Russell was a victim himself of the blogosphere blowback, and it would be extremely surprising if he hadn't at least had some suspicions as to the identity of Montague Burton, even if he didn't endorse his cybersmears.

Look I'm not trying to attack Mike Russell, the new Education Secretary, who is one of the ablest and most intelligent politicians in Scotland. But I suspect that the outing of the cybernats is going to continue and it is likely to damage a lot of prominent people.  The point is that the kind of things Mark MacLachlan was saying, and the manner in which they were expressed, were quite acceptable in the discourse of the pub, or the committee room, but not in wider public debate where the rules are different.

  And it's no use citing other blogs like Guido Fawkes in Mark's defence.  That just makes the case. The standard of debate on the internet is dire and deeply depressing.  This is the main reason that people have turned away from blogging and taken to social networking sites like Facebook where they can avoid being abused by anonymous idiots.    Many people I know don't put comments on blogs that they read because they just don't want to be part of the slime.

  As this blog has pointed out before - and has even  demonstraed in practice  - there is an inbuilt bias on the blogosphere toward vituperation.  It is written into the very architecture of the web.  The surest way to get noticed on the internet -  to generate traffic, attract links, get ranked on Google - is to attack people in the most offensive way possible.  It makes blogs come alive.  Most blogs aren't really there to be read, they're there to be reacted to.

   Which is fine.  No problem with people ranting away in space if that's what they want to do - in private.  But people need to remember that this is a published medium - just like newspapers.  Anonymity is no longer a way of concealing identity, and it is certainly no defence in the law.  Increasingly, you have to be absolutely sure not only that what you are saying is legal, but also that you can stand by it when it is public - and it almost certainly will be made public - because it is out there FOREVER.

 The anonymity of the web is the real problem - it leads to blog rage.  I hated reading the comments that used to be posted on my sites here, at the Herald and at the Guardian. After a while it becomes nauseating and depressing.  As I've said before, it's like addressing a public meeting where the audience are all wearing Donnie Darko masks.  That's why I stopped blogging - or rather turned the blog into an online column based on the material I write for print.  Iain Macwhirter Now and Then is really an anti-blog.

 I hate and rage myself, of course,  but I try not to do it in public.  I only write on a blog something I would be happy to seen in print with my name on it.  If Mark had done the same thing, he would still be employed.