A California lawyer has filed a potential class action lawsuit against Yahoo, according to a BBC News report today. The report says the lawyer was subject to a “barrage of harassing, defamatory and abusive messages” from anonymous users on a Yahoo message board. The lawyer has accused Yahoo of sheltering users who harass people in cyberspace, the BBC Report said.
Risks like these have existed ever since the first public discussion forum went live on a website. A story like this, though, adds fuel to the arguments of those who say that blogs have no place in the corporate world without strict controls and supervision.
I say to them – do not unduly fear such risks. The risks you need to take are calculated ones, intended to be the balance between enabling a blog, and the people who will own it, to achieve the goals you establish and not put the organizaton into a position of unacceptable risk.
Giving in to fear is an unacceptable risk.