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Tuesday, March 23, 2010

TRUTH OR SLANDER?


Moments freely given
from you to me
to do with as I please
to put them in the freeze
to take out
to behold
to deform even
according to my perception
just to serve my needs
just to get applause
just to tickle an audience
am I allowed to do this?
After all
when you gave me your time
I gave you mine
reciprocally and unequivocally
without conditions
without restrictions
without copyright
with my consent.
So your time is my time
I own it
to do with as I desire
to desecrate
to divulge even
if I so wish
over coffee with friends
as a FB status
on a blog
or maybe I should write a book
to navigate from fact to fiction
whenever I feel friction
and have the tension
dissolve
in this new reality.
A "reality" reached
in your absence
to produce the fibres
of truth.

I'm no poet, but you get my gist. This one is about ethics and how much we are allowed to divulge about others - even when we do this anonymously, even when the other person is not aware that they are being publically dissected over the Internet...Just because they are not being hurt by what they don't know doesn't make it ethical.

So where do we draw the line? 

2 comments:

Propoquerian said...

I see yesterday's blog conversation sparked your post for today! And hey, it's great to get material where we can!...
which brings me to today's post. I think it's all about how you approach it.

I try never to give opinions. If i describe exactly what a person did and said, it is not my responsibility how a reader interprets that person, so long as the facts i listed are accurate.
However, should i insert my own opinions in there...should i add, at the end of a fact-retelling paragraph, "he was an idiot," then, well , i think a line has been crossed. But if we just state the facts--the raw words we heard and actions we saw--i think it can be quite helpful to put it out there for others' interpretations. It could shed a different light on things.

Robin said...

And here I thought this was in response to my post WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE? Apparently, we are all struggling. I don't believe you commented on mine...