Japanese [Joi Ito] OK, She was "suspended without pay"

Jonas and Shelly have taken exception to the somewhat inflammatory headline "fired for blogging" in a previous post. To be honest, I stole the headline from Loic without thinking and I probably should have said "blogger suspended without pay" or something like that.

I've scattered comments around about my response to their responses, but I'll consolidate some of points here:

Accusation - Bloggers are attributing everything to blogging and being typically self-important. It wasn't about blogging, she broke company rules by posting the photos.

Response - The company rule was about using uniforms in photos. She says in the BBC interview that others had done so without being reprimanded. She did have a blog and the picture "outed" her identity and that of her employer. The fact that the blog was an anonymous semi-fictional account of a flight attendant until the photo probably didn't help. I would assume that blogging had something to do with it and the rule about the pictures was the technical reason. Also, blogs make it much easier to "post your picture on the Internet" and easier for people to find them. Therefore, I don't think it's silly to talk about blogging. More importantly, it's a good wake-up call for companies to be clear about blogging policy since more and more people are doing it.

Accusation - She broke a company rule. What's wrong with her being reprimanded for it?

Response - Companies have lots of rules that are broken every day. Companies need to think of what is in the best interest of the company and for their stakeholders. If a company does something that looks unfair or produces bad publicity, it's stupid whether it's a rule or not. It reminds me a bit about people who talk about "breaking copyright law". It's not like a speeding ticket. You don't "break copyright law". People use copyright law to go after people who are hurting their business. I think Delta should think about whether going after people who post pictures of themselves in uniform hurts their business or not and whether shutting these people down hurts them more.

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