Blogger's Business

I wrote this comment in Peter's blog...Again! Yes, just want to put my 'two cents worth' of lecturing input there! Anyway, I thought that I could put an argument about the accountability that bloggers have to make when they post something sensitive, especially those famous bloggers with hundreds of hits a day. So this is my first part of the argument which relates to Peter's post 'An Apology', in his weblog. (Refer to www.petertan.com)

Of Brand XX, sponsorship and charity.

What business are you in? If you are in the business of blogging, do you think that you can say anything, and not get commented upon. Or even complained about?

If you are a blogger and you seek for charitable funds only, then you are similar to a charity organisation. If you are a blogger, and you seek for personal sponsorship and you developed a brand, ie your style of writing, your fan base, your advertisement, your PayPal banner so that people can give money to you, etc, and your blog makes a compulsive read and which gives you rewards for your personal needs and income, say, you are similar to many business and corporations out there. Hence, Xiaxue's blog which overtly advertises itself and get sponsorship deals, and have so many hundreds of readers is - a business / corporation ,isn't it?

It is very simple.

Because the business is disabled friendly, meaning the writing has been putting down disabled people's rights, for example, "So tell me, our government spent millions of taxpayers money to build so many facilities for the physically disabled, and only they are allowed to use it?" (Xiaxue, Oct. 16) hence the business gotta be accountable for its action. Don't you think?

This is nothing new. Businesses get hit back a lot of times, because they are not disabled friendly or there is a cause to complain. We complained once in writing and in the media about an airline that took an hour for a friend of mine to disembark via his wheelchair as they did not do their business properly, and they were not courteous. I wrote to a shopping complex before about letting non disabled people park at designated car parks for the disabled, and I will not hesitate to cc to the Ministry of Local Government to put things right or to write to the media and make the business more accountable.

You know why I do this? Because there is no Disability Discrimination Bill in Malaysia (and if you want to know, neither is there a discrimination bill in most Asian countries including Singapore). If there was a bill as such, all I need to do is just complain to a Commission and they will act upon it, like in the UK, and get compensation. No need all these cc and writing to media stuff. Some other party will do the job for you. No need to get people to put you down in a blog like this. No headache!

But as it is in Asia, we have just got to grit our teeth and fight for our rights the best way we can, and complaining it is!

Do I want to be a pushover and let people walk over me and not get my rights heard? Of course not, and so do you. You may be a parent with small children, and elderly person, or someone who just got discriminated upon. So what do you do? Just lie down low and get stepped on?

Let's face it - businesses can get away with anything. Including the business of blogging. It's part and parcel of the 21st Century issues, but we know businesses are run by people. And people need to be accountable for their actions.