› Can Blogging Be Dangerous?
The thing about joining the blogging community is that one becomes, in effect, a public person. A blog is by its nature is open for the public to read and respond to. And the thing about being a public person is that there is the unfortunate possibility of threats or attacks. Readers sometimes turn against the blogger, often without any apparent, or at least rational reason
Take the case of Creating Passionate Users blog author Kathy Sierra. Sierra’s blog was hardly controversial or devisive; if there was a “safe blog”, this should have been it, and yet Sierra became the target of such vicious threats and misogynistic insults that she canceled her keynote speech at a technology conference in San Diego out of fear for her safety.
While a blogger's anonymity is hardly ironclad, Internet predators who would attack a blogger with threats or insults can be emboldened by the online privacy policy. Young people are a particularly vulnerable group, and having a blog safe teen is a real challenge.