Calumny is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as
a “false statement maliciously made to injure another’s
reputation.” Calumny has been part of life since the dawn of time.
But opportunities for calumny have proliferated with the advent of
the Internet, especially since the rise of the phenomenon known as
“blogging.”
An especially compelling element of blogging is the ability to
project one’s ideas, observations and opinions with near-complete
anonymity. It is common blogger practice to adopt an online persona
— usually some cute name or title with relevance to the main focus
of the blog. Likewise, readers who comment on blog postings or
participate in discussions can set their views before the world
without revealing themselves. Service providers that host blogs
routinely permit such anonymity, and the law has upheld the
practice (in only a handful of court cases have providers been
forced to unmask their blogging clients).
But the power to reach a wide audience while remaining in the
shadows has proven a source of great temptation. All too many
online commentators have been dazzled by this technology that
magnifies personal identity and stokes the ego while providing a
shield from the consequences of their words. Whole new avenues of
calumny have been the result.
The essential problem with anonymous blogging is that masked
comments can easily turn malicious, intentionally or otherwise.
Growing concern about online threats and character assassination
among teenagers using social networking services like MySpace and
Facebook has spawned the terms, “cyber-bullying” and
cyber-stalking.” There have been cases of violence — even suicide
— attributed to blog campaigns launched against targeted
individuals. The walking wounded are showing up in hospitals,
psychiatrists’ offices, and high school dropout statistics.
Calumny does not exist apart from the other realities of life.
It is nurtured by social conditions and the particular
circumstances in which individuals find themselves, circumstances
that can provide the rationalizations and self-deception that blind
us to the seriousness of our words and actions. For instance, we
live in a society that puts a high premium on winning. It’s easy to
convince ourselves that anything goes, as long as we achieve the
results we want and don’t get caught doing what we know in our
hearts we shouldn’t do.
Unfortunately, years of highly publicized moral lapses by
athletes — both on and off the field — have accustomed us to
boorish behavior, lack of sportsmanship, and even criminality in
the sports world. A culture of cheating — where winning is all and
how we win makes no difference — has become a kind of perverse
norm.
Calumny is cheating. It does not play by the rules. It is
unsportsmanlike in the extreme, even viciously so. It uses half
truths, innuendo, misrepresentation, disregard for context, and
downright lies, all in the hope that some negative bit of mud, no
matter how distorted or absurd, will stick to the person or
organization under attack. And it is abetted by the unethical use
of technology, including visual technology.
Such devices and tactics have been used to discredit public
figures and private persons alike, to disparage companies,
institutions, government agencies, political movements, and of
course, churches and religious groups. And the impact is multiplied
by other bloggers who link to the original posting or pick up a
story and disseminate it farther, even around the world.
There are bloggers who present their calumny under the guise of
“allegations,” applying evasive constructs like “some people are
saying” or “it has been alleged.” Such writers are often well
educated (sometimes with a law background), skilled at parsing
words in order to avoid culpability for legal defamation. In this
they rely for protection on the high standard of proof required to
bring a libel action.
Others recognize the calumny, but see it as a compromise that
must be made for the sake of a noble cause. They hope that by
destroying an opponent’s reputation they will de-legitimize the
position which that opponent represents. This is the “greater good”
rationalization, the thinking of terrorists willing to kill
innocent people (even sometimes themselves) in pursuit of lofty
goals. In such manner, “cyber-terrorists” are often willing to
tolerate a certain amount of “collateral damage” for the sake of
what they perceive as good. They will employ pernicious lies
concerning sexual matters that can wreck marriages, allegations of
legal impropriety that can destroy careers, statements demeaning
the moral probity of civic leaders that can weaken society as a
whole.
Bloggers of either mindset ignore a basic precept of morality:
Evil means may never be employed to achieve a good end (perhaps
their skewed thinking can be compared to that of people who believe
it’s moral to kill abortion doctors in order to end the horror of
abortion).
This type of blogging presents us with a situation of serious
moral and ethical concern because it violates the dignity of
persons and undermines truth. And in the end, truth is the only
basis on which a good society can be built.
Those involved in blogging would do well keep in mind the words
of the Prophet Isaiah 33:15, which says of the good person: “He who
acts with integrity, who speaks sincerely …shuts suggestion of
murder out of his ears, and closes his eyes against crime, this man
will dwell in the heights.”
