Forbes attacked by blogs for story on attacks by blogs

A Forbes' piece, called "Attack of the Blogs", addressed the dangers of unaccountable or unreasonable blog attacks. The immediate response was indignant condemnation from big-traffic bloggers including Instapundit, Doc Searls, BoingBoing, and Dan Gilmor. Guess what? They proved Forbes' point.

Forbes' article concerned the piling-on and trashing by blogs who write and publish so quickly and unaccountably that invective often passes for fact. It opens up with a somewhat inflammatory and sensationalist couple of sentences (a typical magazine "teaser"), which opened the piece up to the very sort of attack it recounts. Here's the intro:

"Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo."

After that ill-considered prose, the piece settles down to deal with facts and quotes from various sources.

The generally reserved Instapundit called the piece "adjective filled" and "rather unfair". We understand the latter criticism, but the former is pretty obtuse. We can only surmise that Reynolds meant the piece was sensationalistic (there's nothing wrong with adjectives per se, so far as we know, and Reynolds uses them often). But if Reynolds wanted to comment on "unfair adjectives" he should have taken a look at the fire-breathing BoingBoing piece:

"How to punish bloggers, a tutorial for businesses from Forbes... hyper-inflammatory, breathlessly trollbaitin'... piece of trash... "

Looking to grab an Instalanche and Boing Boing-lanche, Gilmor piles on (just three hours after BoingBoing posted) to reinforce the prevailing views:

"what a pile of trash... riddled with exaggeration, misstatements and worse... Among the howlers..."

Searls is more reasoned, but he wants to be on the 'right' side of this issue, too:

" 'Attack blogs are but a sliver of the rapidly expanding blogosphere,' Lyons writes, otherwise ignoring or discrediting the non-sliver blogging constituency throughout his report."

So, although Lyons acknowledges that only "a sliver" of the 'sphere is abusing the system, Searls condemns him for not having made nice noises about (presumably) the majority of bloggers. Of course, Lyons is working for a dead-tree publication (with limited space), and the fact that his article does not include the enormously important contribution of helpful blogging does NOT invalidate the article, despite Searls' protestations to the contrary.

Searls was one of the most reasonable of the bloggers we examined (and has the most links to other commentary). BoingBoing, by contrast, didn't link to Keep Trying, which saw and understood the big picture:

"Forbes has a decent article highlighting the problem of lack of accountability combined with the growing influence of blogging. The author documents a few cases where bloggers caused a great deal of damage to individuals and companies. In each case a mob of bloggers acted as prosecutor, jury and executioner... Power without accountability is a dangerous mix and it is very sad that the blogosphere as a group is clueless about the potential consequences and possible solutions."

Unfortunately, blogs are as guilty of playing follow-the-leader as any other group, and nearly every one went with the direction set by the Instalanched blogs. From the What's Next Blog:

"a fear-mongering, blatantly inaccurate Forbes cover story... an example of bad research and worse reporting... Be afraid. Be Very Afraid: Of Forbes Reporting... Some of the inflammatory statements that show Lyons' bias... dismissing bloggers as a bunch of low-lifes with no journalistic standards is just plain silly.... you should be ashamed of this article... wrap your fish in this Forbes cover story."

None - that is, not a single one - of the bloggers who attacked the Forbes piece could invalidate the facts cited (the attack on Gregory Halpern and Circle Group Holdings, the lack of accountability for false statements, the prevalence of hyperbole and attacks in place of facts, and the fact that Halpern's attacker, Nick Tracy, was engaging in a pump-and-dump stock scheme). Few even mentioned these facts, which formed the basis for the story.

Bloggers' reaction to Lyons' story proves the point of his story. For all the talk of freedom of speech in the 'sphere, there is a rabid fear of responsibility. Offline, laws exist (inadequate though they are) protecting individuals and companies from libel. Online, there's nothing. Also, many of the bloggers in this 'swarm' on Lyons smeared him as the sold-out champion of big-money companies. That's the easy charge to make, but it doesn't jibe with the facts. Gregory Halpern ain't Bill Gates, but some of these bloggers portrayed Lyons as trying to stifle blogging on behalf of monied iintersts.

"What’s the point of being disgustingly rich if you can’t control the media, eh?"

With nothing preventing them, and every reason (traffic, and acceptance by other blogs) to sling accusations, unfounded charges flew, as they always do. Gothamist accused him of censorship "just like the Catholic schools of NJ who aren't allowing students to blog", which is a major stretch. Searls says:

"Thus sensationalism, which attracts readers and sells magazines, wins a small victory over publisher Steve Forbes' own free-market politics."

Doc, blogs on the whole are often more sensationalistic than newspapers (who can, at least, be held legally accountable) will ever be - and you know it. Don't throw that stone, not in this house.

What may have disturbed some in this blogswarm were the bare-knuckled "fighting back" suggestions Lyons made. These were listed on a scale from benign to nuclear: Monitor the blogosphere, Start your own blog, Build a blog swarm, Bash back, Attack the host, Sue the blogger. As we have actually had to defend a small company that was crippled by libelous attacks, we know the power of destructive language. We also know that, after the initial Instalanche, few blogs go back to correct facts. Fewer still will stand up to the bigger blogs - though a handful are generally up to the task.

Most bloggers just, well, wanna have fun traffic. If they want to preserve Internet freedom of speech, though, they're going to have to also stand up and be counted against the 'sphere's rampant irresponsibility and biased, hidden-agenda attacks. The first step is to acknowledge that these problems exist (which is the reason for this post), because if we don't start holding ourselves to a higher standard, others will come in and do it for us. Libel laws and search warrants have a chilling effect on free speech, and the 'net is building a case, day by day, for their implementation. One day, a case by a seriously aggrieved party will come before the Supreme Court, and everything will change.

The best point made (aside from Lyons' remarks) was made by Searls: The Forbes site IS ridiculously slow, and awkward, and the fact that THIS piece, of all their pieces, would disappear behind a firewall was just dumb. If it's going to start commenting on blogging, Forbes needs to take a clue from MSNBC and the Washington Post to take steps towards blogger-friendliness. Forbes: Take a page from your own magazine, for that matter, and get with it.

ABC: Forbes fumbles the blogosphere

Categories: Blogosphere