Oct

25

Blog Ethics

October 25, 2006 |

Mike Arrington today reports on an initiative to create some form of ethics guideline for bloggers. CNET is sponsering a gathering in SF to discuss this tonight, but for those of use far away from the West Coast, the Social Media Club has some additional infromation.

To me, it all comes down to this paragraph - something I wish all the PayPerPosters who don’t disclose their posts would read and take to heart:

In the end it comes down to the same thing I have been telling publishers and broadcasters for the past 12 years - don’t ever squander the trust you have with your audience by not being completely truthful. The public (aka audience) will revolt if you do and they will speak up and call you on it. Even though there are a number of assholes in the world with their personal axes to grind who may attack for the sake of being able to do so, most people won’t buy into that crap - particularly if you have continuously proven your trustworthiness over time while building a great relationship with your audience.

Hat’s of to Xial, by the way, who I criticized in an earlier post, yet who has been working inside PPP and telling people to be ethical. He recommends using this image - something which I fully agree with.
But of course, there are also people like Amy (a lover of discount light bulbs and all inclusive holidays) who says:

I don’t disclose on every post on my blog (I really couldn’t care less what all the naysayers are saying about disclaimers, etc.), so that requirement doesn’t bother me.

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11 Comments so far

  1. Shan on October 25, 2006 8:46 pm

    Revolting and calling me on it? I’m honest with my readers, but they have stated themselves they think PPP is a smart idea and no problem at all (this is coming from non-PayPerPosties). I do it for charitable purposes, and if there’s the small chance the integrity of a blog is slightly compromised, it would still be worth it. I almost always disclose that it’s a paid ad, but if I’m being honest about the product, what does it matter if I disclose or not? If I don’t say that it’s a paid ad, the only reason is because it gets really repetitive for my readers who already know I am with PayPerPost, and can kill the flow of a really good post. I don’t understand the whole obsession with disclosure, the point is honesty. And it’s possible to be honest, and advertise, without disclosing. I think you definitely should call out the dishonest bloggers, but making PPP seem like this Evil Empire is silly. People advertising products they’ve never heard of, haven’t used, and don’t like is bad. But mentioning a product and giving an honest opinion on it is perfectly fine, whether there’s disclosure or not.

  2. Shan on October 25, 2006 8:50 pm

    Actually, I want to correct myself. I wouldn’t compromise the ‘integrity’ of my blog even for a charitable cause, but risking slightly bringing down its ‘quality’ would be worth the good.

  3. Frederic on October 25, 2006 9:20 pm

    Shan - I would almost agree with you, but I think you should point out what post is an ad (and notice that you call it an ‘ad’) - your regular readers might know its an ad, but for the sake of your blog, I hope you get other traffic as well - and those readers don’t know.

    Honesty and disclosure to me go hand in hand, by the way - I don’t think you are honest with your readers if you don’t disclose your affiliation.

    If you really like a product, just post about it without getting paid. And lets face it, a lot of the stuff that’s advertised through PPP is not exactly high quality and I see a LOT of ‘Posties’ posting about things they clearly have no clue about and couldn’t care less about - but the copy they write is good enough and the links to the advertiser are there.

  4. Chris Heuer on October 26, 2006 4:33 am

    While you are right to a degree regarding the application of the truth principle - it is up for readers to decide if the fact you got paid to write it is relevant - this is the point of disclosure - to let them know what your interests are in writing it. Being paid for the ad space without letting people know it is ad space is ultimately just wrong and yes evil - it goes against everything that journalistic integrity is supposed to be about. It also creates a potential for massive abuse and the misplacement of the public trust, which is not necessary.

    I agree about the painful process involved in trying to weave it into the flow of the story, but must respectfully disagree with how easily you dismiss the importance of being transparent. If you are being honest about the opinion on the product anyway, what difference would it make if you let people know you were paid to write it?

  5. Chris Heuer on October 26, 2006 4:34 am

    BTW - that was meant for Shan, in case you could not tell. Thanks for the nod and link Chris…

  6. Shan on October 26, 2006 6:57 pm

    Frederic, I’m not sure that honesty and disclosure are both always necessary.

    I agree that when you’re being honest, there is no harm in disclosing anyway. I also agree that there is a lot of potential for people to abuse the system. Though I’m not looking to keep it a secret when I make a paid post, sometimes I’d rather not mention it because I don’t want people to assume my opinion has been tainted.

    Take for instance, this post about my interaction with people: http://shanthology.blogspot.com/2006/10/people-people.html
    if you don’t want to read it all, it’s basically about an experience I had with a person I invited to be a guest at a show. The story is completely true, and I link to a web-service which I had used. The point I’m making in the post has nothing to do with the webservice (Voice123), but is about how I interact with others. In this case, mentioning PPP would have killed the flow and would have then put the focus entirely on the link.

    Now, my regulars know that I PPP, but if someone wanders to my blog and reads that post only, they’ll might notice how effective the service was. But even though they don’t know I PayPerPosted, if they end up trying the service, they still got a completely honest recommendation from me.

    What are my interests in writing anything? PPP gives me some topics and I pick the ones that I WANT to write about, where I have something to say. Same way I visit Google News or the National Geographic website and post about things I think are interesting. Where I actually get the topic from is immaterial. I never think “That’s boring, but it pays $3.00″. These PayPerPosts usually require 50, 100, 200 words, but I write much more than that.

    There are tons of abusers, so I can’t speak for anyone but myself. PayPerPost is young and it’ll probably take time for the to improve the system, though I doubt it’ll ever be flawless. That said, I don’t believe it’s necessary to plaster a huge “Paid Advertisement” message/image that will make people scroll over the blog entry, as opposed to reading it, which is what I want (even though there’s no financial gain for me from people reading or clicking).

    PayPerPost is not going to get up and leave, boycotting 1% of blogs won’t help either. More ideas for making the system honourable are needed.

  7. Mohan on October 27, 2006 4:44 pm

    Hey again Fredrick…
    I’ll tell you what I do to earn money from PPP while also keeping my audience… I just select the oppurtunities which I’m comfortable with. I dont lie on my blog…
    For example I skipped a lot of high paying oppurtunities on gambling, smoking etc.

    Anyway, PPP has been good for me… Before I used to get about 100-200 visitors per day… Now I get well above 400 per day, and almost 50% of that is from PPP, PPP related stuff, or blogs which link to me because of PPP - like this blog :P

  8. Frederic on October 27, 2006 7:54 pm

    Mohan - if you blogged regularly and wrote good content, you would get those numbers, too. And is traffic really all there is to it? Yeah you get 400 uniques, but are those people interested in your blog?

  9. Shan on October 27, 2006 8:25 pm

    What does it matter? More traffic and money? Is there something inherently wrong in making blogging profitable? I don’t think there is. If this is about honesty, then when people are blogging honestly, then there’s really no other case to be made against them.

    Another point which some people have raised is… so? Some people ask, why should you care? Who are you, the martyrs defending to the blogosphere? Blogging is being turned into this sacrosanct, which it isn’t. If I value my opinion, then I’ll be sure to be honest. But if I’d rather say forget it and then just go for some extra dollars, then that’s my prerogative. You’re wasting your own energy and just upsetting people by suggesting this is so corrupt when it hardly has an impact on anyone. That’s not my own way of thinking, but it’s not untrue.

  10. Mohan on October 28, 2006 3:28 pm

    CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS :)
    Check this out - http://blog.payperpost.com/2006/10/our-disclosure-policy.html

  11. april on February 1, 2007 3:40 am

    HA???

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