Hahahahaha!!! I wrote this WAY back in August for U-Musings

In this day and age, the internet has long overtaken gossips as the biggest spreaders of fire. Blogging, uploading those online diaries, for example, can never be safe again.

A few months back, an acquaintance of mine had her tag board flooded with profanities directed at her because of her love life. And since when did her life suddenly become the business of unsolicited strangers? Sure, she didn’t have to publicise her blog or even have one for that matter, but surely whatever she is accused of is no worse than the cowardice of these people who hide behind the anonymity that the medium allows them? Just today, I found out that I myself was tagged with untruthful accusations as if it’s not enough that I’m going through my situation.

It gets even worse when you leave your picture up there only to have someone to come in and mutilate it! This, my friends, is known as vandalism! Whoever was the vandal should only be too glad that not everyone has the time or money to run around suing everyone else.

All these negative experiences aside, I suppose the good thing about having a blog is the concept that you can talk about anything you want whenever you want however you want to whoever chooses to tune in to your rambling. And yes, it allows you to tell your friends and family what’s happening with you without having to find a common block of free time. But my primary concern, and that of many others, is, how do you keep those insults out and still be able to let others see and comment legitimately?

Having gone through all these, there are a few simple solutions I’m adopting to these problems.

Don’t put your name up on the net! Sure, some of us still do that and it benefits us to some extent. But sometimes it’s really just courting danger isn’t it?
And please, don’t leave your pictures lying around… It’s just as bad as scribbling your name on the back of physical photographs and giving them out to random strangers.
You could just as easily pull out simple codes that allow you to password protect your blog. The problem with this is that it makes going in to read your material such a chore. I suppose then only your real friends or people who haven’t anything better to do will go in? Learning Moveable Type has a comprehensive article that should help you with password protecting your blog.
Lose the tag boards or don’t put them in, in the first place. People leaving stupid, insensitive messages there have irritated most bloggers, at one point or another. So if it really bothers you that much, get rid of it.
This is my favourite solution. Why bother about all these childish people who run about writing things on your site. In fact, the blogger should feel greatly amused that someone else has taken time out of their own lives and shown interest in theirs. Of course this doesn’t make insulting the person back legitimate. It just provides more comic relief. ?

Blogging definitely has its benefits. It’s just a real pity that there are people out there who’d like nothing more than to exploit it. Insults or no, I won’t stop blogging.