Notes from the Cape

Hi All

I posted a few weeks ago about a blogger being sued for criticising a local business. Today, I received the following update from the facebook group. To summarize, it looks like the issue has been resolved (I have edited it for brevity).

I met with QVC at the Midrand Protea Hotel. There were no lawyers and the meeting went extremely well. We all needed to come to an agreement that we could be happy with, and not leave feeling bitter. The agreement we drew up and signed (using a laptop and a portable printer) is the best we could manage, and I’m happy with it.

I have removed the articles and references from my blog, and the court cases are being suspended for 5 years. Provided I don’t write derogatory things about QVC in that time, the cases will be allowed to lapse, and no harm is done.

Bear in mind that my initial visit to QVC was 18 months ago, and much has changed during that time, including the way they do their marketing. Whether I agree with the way they do business or not is irrelevant: they changed in response to my complaints, and the complaints of others, and had I known that I would not have written further articles in August and September last year.

I think the blogger community has done a great job in highlighting this issue, and I thank everyone who participated. We have all learnt a great deal.

Donn Edwards

As bloggers, we can now breath a big sigh of relief, but it does hilight that issue that what we write can get us into trouble. Be careful what you say, because you can be held accountable for it (this does not just apply to bloggers, but to all online activity). So, if you are not prepared to defend your voice, then don’t say anything.

Where I support Donn is that he was willing to be accountable for what he had written, and to defend his actions.

I don’t think that this is the last time an SA blogger is going to end up in court, which is why it is so important for bloggers to come up with some sort of code of ethics to abide to.