Mike Arrington is right to be concerned about O’Reilly’s Code of Conduct. You can read the original post here, and a NYT article here. Having a debate about how to reduce anonymous comment hate is good. Using reason to try and elevate the overall civility level of the blogosphere is good. Using existing laws to prosecute people who cross the line from vulgar to threatening is good. The proposed code of conduct, IMHO, doesn't really get to those things. In a knee jerk kind of way, I want to agree with Tim here, and it's seductive to think that managed speech is an improvement over the unfettered scream of the public square, but it's not. From the final line of the NYT article:
Mr. O’Reilly said the guidelines were not about censorship. “That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make — believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech,” he said. “Free speech is enhanced by civility.”
Yes, free speech is enhanced by civility, but your definition of civil and mine are going to be quite different. When people make the decision to blog, they are stepping into a wild west public square. Laws apply, when people break the law, apply the law. Other than that, hands off.