Between Censorship and Threats

The so called blogger code of conduct is creating some interesting discussions over at DailyKos, Pandagon, and Feministe:

Shorter Kos: She was asking for death threats, which she probably made up.

Via Jessica.

Amanda (Panda) is right on in her closing:

Not to say that the criticism about the blogger code of conduct is wrong, of course. I think that it’s naive to think that’s going to work, but again, the tech blogging crowd may be old hat at this. But you can engage in a criticism of that without trotting out the tired stereotype that women are hysterical and paranoid.

The crux of her critique falls on these lines from Kos’s post (emphasis mine):

Most of the time, said “death threats” don’t even exist — evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said “death threats”.

…

If they can’t handle a little heat in their email inbox, then really, they should try another line of work.

Talk about blaming the victim. The bloggers and journalists complaining are framed as whiny boys who cried wolf, who simply aren’t up to the task of being a public figure. While in some rare cases there may be some truth to this argument (viz mainstream journalists who create blogs, get legitimate criticism, then cry foul and “hate speech!”), there are enough cases where it doesn’t to make the argument ineffective. Of course, I cannot say for certain how rare or common the validity of death threats are. Neither can Kos (where does he get his “most of the time” from?). However we can say that some kinds of threats are by nature deadly (from Pandagon, emphasis mine):

When I first started blogging here, I had a hell of a time running around deleting my home address out of the comments of the blog here. That is a death/rape threat. Very rarely do people threaten to kill you outright, but they simply imply it. Your address in your comments=”I know where you live.”

This is not just a death threat (a la “I’m gonna kill you!”), it is a “I’ve been stalking you and here is proof”. Worse, knowing that other readers may be harboring a desire to issue threats, carry through on threats, or “put them in their place”, doing so is an active invitation to real violence.

All of this being said, there are two legitimate criticisms of the code of conduct.  One is, as Kos notes, its efficacy.  The other is the one I think Kos actually meant to tackle by painting these threats as unsubstantial.  Some bloggers and journalists might use the notion of civility and a “code of conduct” to justify naked censorship.  This is something to be opposed to absolutely.  While censoring comments that actually threaten and espouse raw hatred makes sense, censoring based on disagreeable content does not.  It is right to be wary of the “code of conduct” being used for just that.