Kathy Sierra and Chris Locke Issue Joint Statement

Posted on April 2, 2007

Kathy Sierra and Chris Locke have issued this joint statement before making a CNN appearance. Both bloggers wrote in their statement about how important it is for last week's death threats to not be used in any way to limit free speech.

Kathy Sierra still won't be blogging for a while. She writes, "Although I've learned a lot in the last few days, I still do not know who made the unclebobism photo post, or why, or whether that person is a real threat. That part of the story has continued to devolve in even scarier ways. So, this is the last post I'll make for some time, and I've closed comments because I cannot keep up with the hateful ones (including those that post my home address and social security number, etc.)."

Virginia DeBolt at BlogHer writes, "My hope is now that they are talking together about the issue of online threats against women, the rhetoric surrounding the discussion will settle down. People can stop taking sides and move to a more rational examination of the issue and what actions should come out of it."

Wired's Epicenter blog says, "Unlike Usenet, when the going gets too vulgar on the blogosphere there's always somewhere else to go. It's good to know that people can occasionally come face to face to air out their problems in front of millions of television viewers. That, more than anything, is guaranteed to keep the eyeballs coming back to both of their blogs."

Robert Scoble has a lengthy post about the issue here. He notes that on Twitter flame wars may be more difficult because of the shorter posts there. "Really, the only one I can control is myself. That's how I'll get back to having fun again. In the meantime there's always Twitter. Where all attacks are 140 characters or less. Ever notice that a good flame is hard to write short?"