There is a recent post by SJSU Alum Robert Scoble [Link] that reacts to a post by Adam Bosworth [Link] that says, "I find that most of what I want to post these days would rile a fair number of people and then Google would get the blame even though these are my personal opinions, so I chose to keep my thoughts to myself."
Scoble says, "Changing the world is messy work. It's not for those who fear getting fired or fear getting their companies a bit of bad PR or who fear the opinions of billionaires."
Scoble is advising Bosworth to blog what he feels. But, what about those of us who are way out here on the long tail? For example, I believe that I was retaliated against after I complained about my blogging and podcasting being raised in (what I feel was a negative way) in my performance evaluation. No, I can't prove I was retaliated against, so this is just my opinion. But, I brought this up as a freedom of speech issue on my blog and with my management [Link].
I think freedom of Internet speech has to apply to us long-tail-bloggers as well as you spike-bloggers for it to be free. In my conversations with other long-tail-bloggers (who are worker bees) I can assure you that they have been telling me they do not feel free to blog what they feel about their jobs. Come on, who doesn't fear getting fired? Your job is your home and your health coverage!
Still, for the global conversation to flow freely, I think all voices need to be able to come to the party. For myself, I still feel I did the right thing, but I am not sure I would have made the same choice if we didn't have a union. Freedom of speech is still not free in our society, for most of us when it comes to what we do for a living. The cost is always part of the equation.
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