Dangers of electronic communication
While working through my RSS feeds this morning I read a sad tale at Danwei about a satirical poem that was sent to a few friends which resulted in the author being arrested for libel. It appears the local Chinese government took exception.
Satire and sarcasm have long been used to make comments on politics, Voltaire and Jonathan Swift both come to mind. This seems more like a joke shared between friends than a scathing public attack on the powers that be. However ‘friends’ is a relative term and the powers that be often don’t like to have their mistakes and short comings pointed out, even in jest.
I know I began to question every word I wrote and everything I said during my MBA. Electronic communication can come back to haunt you, whether it is a joke, the truth, somewhere in between or possibly both. Unfortunately, misunderstandings can happen unexpectedly and escalate rapidly.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 1:04 pm filed under: China, Depression, Internet and tagged: sarcasm, satire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
