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81-419: Astral Codex Ten (ACX), formerly Slate Star Codex (SSC), is a blog focused on science , medicine (especially within psychiatry ), philosophy , politics , and futurism . The blog is written by Scott Alexander Siskind, a San Francisco Bay Area psychiatrist , under the pen name Scott Alexander. Slate Star Codex was launched in 2013 and was discontinued on June 23, 2020, after Alexander's full name

162-449: A zine , before the term blog entered common usage. The first research paper about blogging was Torill Mortensen and Jill Walker Rettberg 's paper "Blogging Thoughts", which analysed how blogs were being used to foster research communities and the exchange of ideas and scholarship, and how this new means of networking overturns traditional power structures. Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common Websites. In 1995,

243-503: A TV station or newspaper, either as an add-on to a traditional media presence (e.g., hosting a radio show or writing a column in a paper newspaper), or as their sole journalistic output. Some institutions and organizations see blogging as a means of "getting around the filter" of media " gatekeepers " and pushing their messages directly to the public. Many mainstream journalists, meanwhile, write their own blogs—well over 300, according to CyberJournalist.net's J-blog list. The first known use of

324-829: A blog on a news site was in August 1998, when Jonathan Dube of The Charlotte Observer published one chronicling Hurricane Bonnie . Some bloggers have moved over to other media. The following bloggers (and others) have appeared on radio and television: Duncan Black (known widely by his pseudonym, Atrios), Glenn Reynolds ( Instapundit ), Markos Moulitsas Zúniga ( Daily Kos ), Alex Steffen ( Worldchanging ), Ana Marie Cox ( Wonkette ), Nate Silver ( FiveThirtyEight.com ), and Ezra Klein (Ezra Klein blog in The American Prospect , now in The Washington Post ). In counterpoint, Hugh Hewitt exemplifies

405-502: A breakdown of the traditional advertising model, where companies can skip over the advertising agencies (previously the only interface with the customer) and contact the customers directly via social media websites. On the other hand, new companies specialised in blog advertising have been established to take advantage of this new development as well. However, there are many people who look negatively on this new development. Some believe that any form of commercial activity on blogs will destroy

486-576: A commercial blog was on the first business to consumer Web site created in 1995 by Ty, Inc. , which featured a blog in a section called "Online Diary". The entries were maintained by featured Beanie Babies that were voted for monthly by Web site visitors. The modern blog evolved from the online diary where people would keep a running account of the events in their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall , who began personal blogging in 1994 while

567-432: A fascist point." Nick Land disputes the similarity between his ideas and fascism , claiming that "Fascism is a mass anti-capitalist movement," whereas he prefers that "[capitalist] corporate power should become the organizing force in society." Journalist and pundit James Kirchick states that "although neo-reactionary thinkers disdain the masses and claim to despise populism and people more generally, what ties them to

648-533: A fixation on critiquing regimes of truth ," Jones remarks, "are fundamental to NeoReaction (NRx) and what separates it from other Far-Right theory". Moreover, Jones argues that Dark Enlightenment's fixation on aesthetics, history, and philosophy, as opposed to the traditional empirical approach, distinguishes it from related far-right ideologies. Historian Joe Mulhall , writing for The Guardian , described Nick Land as "propagating very far-right ideas." Despite neoreaction's limited online audience, Mulhall considers

729-678: A large portion of bloggers are professionals and that a well-written blog can help attract employers. Business owners who blog about their business can also run into legal consequences. Mark Cuban , owner of the Dallas Mavericks , was fined during the 2006 NBA playoffs for criticizing NBA officials on the court and in his blog. Blogging can sometimes have unforeseen consequences in politically sensitive areas. In some countries, Internet police or secret police may monitor blogs and arrest blog authors or commentators. Blogs can be much harder to control than broadcast or print media because

810-498: A live worldwide press conference. The questions and answers were later posted on IsraelPolitik , the country's official political blog. The impact of blogging on the mainstream media has also been acknowledged by governments. In 2009, the presence of the American journalism industry had declined to the point that several newspaper corporations were filing for bankruptcy, resulting in less direct competition between newspapers within

891-506: A lot of disagreement spread further, in part because they present an opportunity to members of different groups to send a strong signal of commitment to their cause. For example, he argues that PETA , with its controversial campaigns, is better known than other animal rights organizations such as Vegan Outreach because of this dynamic. Another example of this cited by Alexander is the Rolling Stone article " A Rape on Campus ". In

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972-689: A mass media personality who has moved in the other direction, adding to his reach in "old media" by being an influential blogger. Similarly, it was Emergency Preparedness and Safety Tips On Air and Online blog articles that captured Surgeon General of the United States Richard Carmona 's attention and earned his kudos for the associated broadcasts by talk show host Lisa Tolliver and Westchester Emergency Volunteer Reserves- Medical Reserve Corps Director Marianne Partridge. Blogs have also had an influence on minority languages , bringing together scattered speakers and learners; this

1053-726: A monarchical, or CEO model of government to replace democracy. It also embraces the notion of " acceleration ", first articulated by Vladimir Lenin as "worse is better", but in the neoreaction version, the creation and promotion of ever more societal crises hastens the adoption of the neoreactive state instead of a communist one. Some consider the Dark Enlightenment part of the alt-right , representing its theoretical branch. The Dark Enlightenment has been labelled by some as neo-fascist , and by University of Chichester professor Benjamin Noys as "an acceleration of capitalism to

1134-511: A new HTML file, and at the start of each month, diary entries were archived into their own folder, which contained a separate HTML page for every day of the month. Then, menus that contained links to the most recent diary entry were updated manually throughout the site. This text-based method of organizing thousands of files served as a springboard to define future blogging styles that were captured by blogging software developed years later. The evolution of electronic and software tools to facilitate

1215-402: A new model of marketing communication from businesses to consumers. Among the various forms of advertising on blog, the most controversial are the sponsored posts . These are blog entries or posts and may be in the form of feedback, reviews, opinion, videos, etc. and usually contain a link back to the desired site using a keyword or several keywords. Blogs have led to some disintermediation and

1296-682: A number of different strains, but perhaps the most important is a form of post-libertarian futurism that, realizing that libertarians aren't likely to win any elections, argues against democracy in favor of authoritarian forms of government." Andy Beckett stated that "NRx" supporters "believe in the replacement of modern nation-states, democracy and government bureaucracies by authoritarian city states, which on neoreaction blogs sound as much like idealised medieval kingdoms as they do modern enclaves such as Singapore ." According to criminal justice professor George Michael , neoreaction seeks to save its ideal of Western civilization through adoption of

1377-672: A particular subject or topic, ranging from philosophy , religion , and arts to science , politics , and sports . Others function as more personal online diaries or online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. A typical blog combines text, digital images , and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art ( art blogs ), photographs ( photoblogs ), videos ( video blogs or vlogs ), music ( MP3 blogs ), and audio ( podcasts ). In education, blogs can be used as instructional resources; these are referred to as edublogs . Microblogging

1458-412: A person can create a blog whose authorship is hard to trace by using anonymity technology such as Tor . As a result, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes often seek to suppress blogs and punish those who maintain them. In Singapore, two ethnic Chinese individuals were imprisoned under the country's anti-sedition law for posting anti-Muslim remarks in their blogs. Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer

1539-670: A pseudonymous "username" (e.g., "Hacker1984"). Sierra and supporters initiated an online discussion aimed at countering abusive online behaviour and developed a Blogger's Code of Conduct , which set out a rules for behaviour in the online space. Neoreaction The term The Endarkenment describes a similar idea; the rejection of reason and science. Its origin is obscure but it was used by David Colquhoun in 2007. The ideology generally rejects Whig historiography —the concept that history shows an inevitable progression towards greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy —in favor of

1620-582: A question with an absurd answer as one of the options, so anyone choosing that option could be weeded out as a troll . The site was a primary venue of the rationalist community and also attracted wider audiences. The New Statesman characterizes it as "a nexus for the rationalist community and others who seek to apply reason to debates about situations, ideas, and moral quandaries." The New Yorker describes Alexander's fiction as "delightfully weird" and his arguments "often counterintuitive and brilliant". Economist Tyler Cowen calls Scott Alexander "a thinker who

1701-500: A return to traditional societal constructs and forms of government, including absolute monarchism and other older forms of leadership such as cameralism . Neo-reactionaries are an informal community of bloggers and political theorists who have been active since the 2000s. Steve Sailer is a contemporary forerunner of the ideology, which also draws influence from philosophers such as Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola . In 2007 and 2008, software engineer Curtis Yarvin , writing under

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1782-466: A slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools: An early milestone in the rise in importance of blogs came in 2002, when many bloggers focused on comments by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott . Senator Lott, at a party honoring U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond , praised Senator Thurmond by suggesting that

1863-538: A student at Swarthmore College , is generally recognized as one of the earlier bloggers, as is Jerry Pournelle . Dave Winer 's Scripting News is also credited with being one of the older and longer running weblogs. The Australian Netguide magazine maintained the Daily Net News on their web site from 1996. Daily Net News ran links and daily reviews of new websites, mostly in Australia. Another early blog

1944-491: A virtual " corkboard ". Berners-Lee also created what is considered by Encyclopedia Britannica to be "the first 'blog ' " in 1992 to discuss the progress made on creating the World Wide Web and software used for it. From June 14, 1993, Mosaic Communications Corporation maintained their "What's New" list of new websites, updated daily and archived monthly. The page was accessible by a special "What's New" button in

2025-412: A week before the company's earnings announcement. He was fired two days after he complied with his employer's request to remove the sensitive material from his blog. In India, blogger Gaurav Sabnis resigned from IBM after his posts questioned the claims made by a management school. Jessica Cutler , aka "The Washingtonienne", blogged about her sex life while employed as a congressional assistant. After

2106-456: Is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts. Blog and blogging are now loosely used for content creation and sharing on social media , especially when the content is long-form and one creates and shares content on regular basis, so one could be maintaining a blog on Facebook or blogging on Instagram . A 2022 estimate suggested that there were over 600 million public blogs out of more than 1.9 billion websites. The term "weblog"

2187-420: Is influential among other writers". Alexander used his first and middle name alone for safety and privacy reasons, although he had previously published Slate Star Codex content academically under his real name. In June 2020, he deleted all entries on Slate Star Codex , stating that a New York Times technology reporter intended to publish an article about the blog using his full name. Alexander said that

2268-465: Is particularly so with blogs in Gaelic languages . Minority language publishing (which may lack economic feasibility) can find its audience through inexpensive blogging. There are examples of bloggers who have published books based on their blogs, e.g., Salam Pax , Ellen Simonetti , Jessica Cutler , and ScrappleFace . Blog-based books have been given the name blook . A prize for the best blog-based book

2349-416: Is people shouting at each other across the void, but not a lot of mutual understanding". Between 2009 and 2012, an Orwell Prize for blogging was awarded. In the late 2000s , blogs were often used on business websites and for grassroots political activism . There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written. As

2430-459: The news media . Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog . The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users who did not have much experience with HTML or computer programming . Previously, knowledge of such technologies as HTML and File Transfer Protocol had been required to publish content on

2511-582: The pen name Mencius Moldbug, articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking. Yarvin's theories were elaborated and expanded by philosopher Nick Land , who first coined the term Dark Enlightenment in his essay of the same name. By mid-2017, NRx had moved to forums such as the Social Matter online forum, the Hestia Society, and Thermidor Magazine. In 2021, Yarvin appeared on Fox News' " Tucker Carlson Today ", where he discussed

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2592-503: The "Online Diary" on the Ty, Inc. Web site was produced and updated manually before any blogging programs were available. Posts were made to appear in reverse chronological order by manually updating text-based HTML code using FTP software in real time several times a day. To users, this offered the appearance of a live diary that contained multiple new entries per day. At the beginning of each new day, new diary entries were manually coded into

2673-626: The EU Directive 2000/31/EC). In Doe v. Cahill , the Delaware Supreme Court held that stringent standards had to be met to unmask the anonymous bloggers and also took the unusual step of dismissing the libel case itself (as unfounded under American libel law) rather than referring it back to the trial court for reconsideration. In a bizarre twist, the Cahills were able to obtain the identity of John Doe, who turned out to be

2754-509: The March 2020 blog post "Face Masks: Much More Than You Wanted To Know" analyzes available medical literature and comes to a conclusion that contrary to early guidance by the CDC , masks are likely an effective protection measure against COVID-19 for the general public under certain conditions. Some posts are prefaced with a note on their "epistemic status," an assessment of Alexander's confidence in

2835-481: The Mosaic web browser. In November 1993 Ranjit Bhatnagar started writing about interesting sites, pages and discussion groups he found on the internet, as well as some personal information, on his website Moonmilk, arranging them chronologically in a special section called Ranjit's HTTP Playground. Other early pioneers of blogging, such as Justin Hall , credit him with being an inspiration. The earliest instance of

2916-478: The United States would have been better off had Thurmond been elected president. Lott's critics saw these comments as tacit approval of racial segregation , a policy advocated by Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign . This view was reinforced by documents and recorded interviews dug up by bloggers. (See Josh Marshall 's Talking Points Memo .) Though Lott's comments were made at a public event attended by

2997-653: The United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan and his concept of the "Cathedral", which he claims to be the current aggregation of political power and influential institutions that is controlling the country. Central to Nick Land's ideas is a belief in freedom's incompatibility with democracy . Land drew inspiration from libertarians such as Peter Thiel , as indicated in his essay The Dark Enlightenment . The Dark Enlightenment has been described by journalists and commentators as alt-right and neo-fascist . A 2016 article in New York magazine notes that "Neoreaction has

3078-771: The Web, and early Web users therefore tended to be hackers and computer enthusiasts. As of the 2010s, the majority are interactive Web 2.0 websites, allowing visitors to leave online comments, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking service . Indeed, bloggers not only produce content to post on their blogs but also often build social relations with their readers and other bloggers. Blog owners or authors often moderate and filter online comments to remove hate speech or other offensive content. There are also high-readership blogs which do not allow comments. Many blogs provide commentary on

3159-488: The anonymity of Richard Horton . Horton was a police officer in the United Kingdom who blogged about his job under the name "NightJack". Delta Air Lines fired flight attendant Ellen Simonetti because she posted photographs of herself in uniform on an aeroplane and because of comments posted on her blog "Queen of Sky: Diary of a Flight Attendant" which the employer deemed inappropriate. This case highlighted

3240-477: The blog "Creating Passionate Users", was the target of threats and misogynistic insults to the point that she cancelled her keynote speech at a technology conference in San Diego, fearing for her safety. While a blogger's anonymity is often tenuous, Internet trolls who would attack a blogger with threats or insults can be emboldened by the anonymity of the online environment, where some users are known only by

3321-471: The blog in February 2021, three weeks after Alexander had publicly revealed his name. Blog A blog (a truncation of " weblog ") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page . In the 2000s, blogs were often

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3402-525: The blog in a fairly anonymous manner, some of the descriptions of the firm and some of its people were less than flattering. Sanderson later won a compensation claim case against the British firm, however. On the other hand, Penelope Trunk wrote an upbeat article in The Boston Globe in 2006, entitled "Blogs 'essential' to a good career". She was one of the first journalists to point out that

3483-512: The blog was discovered and she was fired, she wrote a novel based on her experiences and blog: The Washingtonienne: A Novel . As of 2006 , Cutler is being sued by one of her former lovers in a case that could establish the extent to which bloggers are obligated to protect the privacy of their real life associates. Catherine Sanderson, a.k.a. Petite Anglaise , lost her job in Paris at a British accountancy firm because of blogging. Although given in

3564-625: The blog, "not a word" of a story about SSC had been written. The Poynter Institute 's David Cohn interpreted this event as part of an ongoing clash between the tech and media industries, reflecting a shift from primarily economic conflicts to fundamental disagreements over values, ethics, and cultural norms. Prior to the article's publication, several commentators argued that the Times should not publish Alexander's name without good reason. Writing in National Review , Tobias Hoonhout said that

3645-595: The blogosphere's credibility. Blogging can result in a range of legal liabilities and other unforeseen consequences . Several cases have been brought before the national courts against bloggers concerning issues of defamation or liability . U.S. payouts related to blogging totalled $ 17.4 million by 2009; in some cases these have been covered by umbrella insurance . The courts have returned with mixed verdicts. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), in general, are immune from liability for information that originates with third parties (U.S. Communications Decency Act and

3726-736: The criticism by Alexander and his supporters that the paper was doxing him caused internal debate among Times ' staff. Supporters of the site organized a petition against release of the author's name. The petition collected over six thousand signatures in its first few days, including psychologist Steven Pinker , social psychologist Jonathan Haidt , economist Scott Sumner , computer scientist and blogger Scott Aaronson , and philosopher Peter Singer . According to New Statesman columnist Louise Perry , Scott Alexander wrote that he quit his job and took measures that made him comfortable with revealing his real name, which he published on Astral Codex Ten . The New York Times published an article about

3807-436: The diversity of media culture, providing opportunities for greater inclusiveness, and making more responsive to consumers." Many bloggers, particularly those engaged in participatory journalism , are amateur journalists, and thus they differentiate themselves from the professional reporters and editors who work in mainstream media organizations. Other bloggers are media professionals who are publishing online, rather than via

3888-514: The documents to be forgeries and presented evidence and arguments in support of that view. Consequently, CBS apologized for what it said were inadequate reporting techniques (see: Little Green Footballs ). The impact of these stories gave greater credibility to blogs as a medium of news dissemination. In Russia, some political bloggers have started to challenge the dominance of official, overwhelmingly pro-government media. Bloggers such as Rustem Adagamov and Alexei Navalny have many followers, and

3969-458: The ideology as "hyper- neoliberal , technologically deterministic , anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, pro-eugenicist , racist and, likely, fascist", and ridicules the entire accelerationist framework as a faulty attempt at "mainstreaming... misogynist, racist and fascist discourses." He criticizes neoreaction's racial principles and for their brazen "disavowal of any discourses " advocating for socio-economic equality and, accordingly, considers it

4050-503: The ideology to have "acted as both a tributary into the alt-right and as a key constituent part [of the alt-right]." Journalist Andrew Sullivan argues that neoreaction's pessimistic appraisal of democracy dismisses many advances that have been made and that global manufacturing patterns also limit the economic independence that sovereign states can have from one another. In an article for The Sociological Review , after an examination of neoreaction's core tenets, Roger Burrows deplores

4131-468: The importance of AI safety research. In the long essay "Meditations On Moloch", he analyzes game-theoretic scenarios of cooperation failure like the prisoner's dilemma and the tragedy of the commons that underlie many of humanity's problems and argues that AI risks should be considered in this context. In "The Toxoplasma of Rage", Alexander discusses how controversies spread in media and social networks. According to Alexander, memes that generate

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4212-481: The issue of personal blogging and freedom of expression versus employer rights and responsibilities, and so it received wide media attention. Simonetti took legal action against the airline for "wrongful termination, defamation of character and lost future wages". The suit was postponed while Delta was in bankruptcy proceedings. In early 2006, Erik Ringmar, a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics ,

4293-438: The latter's nickname for the ruling United Russia party as the "party of crooks and thieves" has been adopted by anti-regime protesters. This led to The Wall Street Journal calling Navalny "the man Vladimir Putin fears most" in March 2012. By 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political consultants , news services, and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming. Blogging

4374-632: The material to follow. In 2017, Slate Star Codex ranked fourth on a survey conducted by Rethink Charity of how effective altruists first heard about effective altruism, after "personal contact", " LessWrong ", and "other books, articles and blog posts", and just above " 80,000 Hours ." The blog discusses moral questions and dilemmas relevant to effective altruism, such as moral offsets (the proposition that good acts can cancel out bad acts), ethical treatment of animals, and trade-offs of pursuing systemic change for charities. Alexander regularly wrote about advances in artificial intelligence and emphasized

4455-529: The media, no major media organizations reported on his controversial comments until after blogs broke the story. Blogging helped to create a political crisis that forced Lott to step down as majority leader. Similarly, blogs were among the driving forces behind the " Rathergate " scandal. Television journalist Dan Rather presented documents on the CBS show 60 Minutes that conflicted with accepted accounts of President Bush's military service record. Bloggers declared

4536-617: The movement. In the 2013 post "Lizardman's Constant is 4%," Alexander coined the term "Lizardman's Constant," referring to the approximate percentage of responses to a poll, survey, or quiz that are not sincere. The post was responding to a Public Policy Polling statement that "four percent of Americans believe lizardmen are running the Earth", which Alexander attributed to people giving a polling company an answer they did not really believe to be true, out of carelessness, politeness, anger, or amusement. Alexander suggested that polls should include

4617-524: The newspaper had applied its anonymity policy inconsistently. The New Statesman 's Jasper Jackson wrote that it was "difficult to see how Scott Alexander's full name is so integral to the NYT 's story that it justifies the damage it might do to him", but cautioned that such criticism was based solely on Alexander's own statements and that "before we make that call, it might be a good idea to have more than his word to go on." As reported by The Daily Beast ,

4698-666: The person they suspected: the town's mayor, Councilman Cahill's political rival. The Cahills amended their original complaint, and the mayor settled the case rather than going to trial. In January 2007, two prominent Malaysian political bloggers, Jeff Ooi and Ahirudin Attan , were sued by a pro-government newspaper, The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad, Kalimullah bin Masheerul Hassan, Hishamuddin bin Aun and Brenden John a/l John Pereira over alleged defamation. The plaintiff

4779-614: The popularity of blogging continued to rise (as of 2006), the commercialisation of blogging is rapidly increasing. Many corporations and companies collaborate with bloggers to increase advertising and engage online communities with their products. In the book Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers , Henry Jenkins stated that "Bloggers take knowledge into their own hands, enabling successful navigation within and between these emerging knowledge cultures. One can see such behaviour as co-optation into commodity culture insofar as it sometimes collaborates with corporate interests, but one can also see it as increasing

4860-484: The popularization of the terms. Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet , commercial online services such as GEnie , Byte Information Exchange (BIX) and the early CompuServe , e-mail lists , and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software created running conversations with "threads". Threads are topical connections between messages on

4941-519: The production and maintenance of Web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible for a much larger and less technically-inclined population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. For instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging". Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services , on regular web hosting services , or run using blog software. After

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5022-423: The reporter told him that it was newspaper policy to use real names, and he referred to it as doxing . The New York Times responded: "We do not comment on what we may or may not publish in the future. But when we report on newsworthy or influential figures, our goal is always to give readers all the accurate and relevant information we can." The Verge cited a source saying that at the time when Alexander deleted

5103-452: The reputation of their employer, either in a positive way, if the employee is praising the employer and its workplaces, or in a negative way, if the blogger is making negative comments about the company or its practices. In general, attempts by employee bloggers to protect themselves by maintaining anonymity have proved ineffective. In 2009, a controversial and landmark decision by The Hon. Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect

5184-539: The rest of the alt-right is their unapologetically racist element, their shared misanthropy and their resentment of mismanagement by the ruling elites." Scholar Andrew Jones, in a 2019 article, postulated that the Dark Enlightenment (i.e. the NeoReactionary Movement) is "key to understanding the Alt-Right" political ideology. "The use of affect theory , postmodern critiques of modernity , and

5265-425: The same circulation area. Discussion emerged as to whether the newspaper industry would benefit from a stimulus package by the federal government. U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged the emerging influence of blogging upon society by saying, "if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, then what you will end up getting

5346-407: The short story "Sort By Controversial", Alexander introduces the term "Shiri's scissor" or "scissor statement" to describe a statement that has great destructive power because it generates wildly divergent interpretations that fuel conflict and tear people apart. The term has been used to describe controversial topics widely discussed in social media. The 2013 post "The Anti-Reactionary FAQ" critiques

5427-567: The work and worldview of the neoreactionary movement , arguing against the work of Curtis Yarvin (whose views include a belief in natural racial hierarchies and a desire to restore feudalism ). Alexander allowed neo-reactionaries to comment on posts and in "culture war" threads on the forum because he wanted to promote an open marketplace of ideas ; Alexander engaged in extended dialogues with these users, including his thirty-thousand-word FAQ. Alexander's essays on neoreaction have been cited by David Auerbach and Dylan Matthews as explanations of

5508-524: The work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes professionally edited . MABs from newspapers , other media outlets , universities, think tanks , advocacy groups , and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic . The rise of Twitter and other " microblogging " systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into

5589-501: Was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, digital video, and digital pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site in 1994. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance , and such journals were also used as evidence in legal matters. Some early bloggers, such as The Misanthropic Bitch, who began in 1997, referred to their online presence as

5670-511: Was among the first national governments to set up an official blog. Under David Saranga , the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs became active in adopting Web 2.0 initiatives, including an official video blog and a political blog . The Foreign Ministry also held a microblogging press conference via Twitter about its war with Hamas , with Saranga answering questions from the public in common text-messaging abbreviations during

5751-563: Was an effort to protect the public. The case was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, and Traffic Power failed to appeal within the allowed time. In 2009, NDTV issued a legal notice to Indian blogger Kunte for a blog post criticizing their coverage of the Mumbai attacks . The blogger unconditionally withdrew his post, which resulted in several Indian bloggers criticizing NDTV for trying to silence critics. Employees who blog about elements of their place of employment can begin to affect

5832-646: Was arrested in April 2007 for anti-government writings in his blog. Monem is a member of the then banned Muslim Brotherhood . After the 2011 Egyptian revolution , the Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad was charged with insulting the military for an article he wrote on his personal blog and sentenced to three years. After expressing opinions in his personal blog about the state of the Sudanese armed forces, Jan Pronk , United Nations Special Representative for Sudan ,

5913-501: Was charged with insulting the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and an Islamic institution through his blog. It is the first time in the history of Egypt that a blogger was prosecuted. After a brief trial session that took place in Alexandria , the blogger was found guilty and sentenced to prison terms of three years for insulting Islam and inciting sedition and one year for insulting Mubarak. Egyptian blogger Abdel Monem Mahmoud

5994-519: Was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997. The short form "blog" was coined by Peter Merholz , who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in May 1999. Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog", meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to

6075-633: Was established by politicians and political candidates to express opinions on war and other issues and cemented blogs' role as a news source. (See Howard Dean and Wesley Clark .) Even politicians not actively campaigning, such as the UK's Labour Party's Member of Parliament (MP) Tom Watson , began to blog to bond with constituents. In January 2005, Fortune magazine listed eight bloggers whom business people "could not ignore": Peter Rojas , Xeni Jardin , Ben Trott , Mena Trott , Jonathan Schwartz , Jason Goldman, Robert Scoble , and Jason Calacanis . Israel

6156-455: Was given three days notice to leave Sudan. The Sudanese army had demanded his deportation. In Myanmar , Nay Phone Latt, a blogger, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for posting a cartoon critical of head of state Than Shwe . One consequence of blogging is the possibility of online or in-person attacks or threats against the blogger, sometimes without apparent reason. In some cases, bloggers have faced cyberbullying . Kathy Sierra , author of

6237-470: Was initiated in 2005, the Lulu Blooker Prize . However, success has been elusive offline, with many of these books not selling as well as their blogs. The book based on Julie Powell 's blog "The Julie/Julia Project" was made into the film Julie & Julia , apparently the first to do so. Consumer-generated advertising is a relatively new and controversial development, and it has created

6318-504: Was ordered by the convenor of his department to "take down and destroy" his blog in which he discussed the quality of education at the school. Mark Jen was terminated in 2005 after 10 days of employment as an assistant product manager at Google for discussing corporate secrets on his personal blog, then called 99zeros and hosted on the Google-owned Blogger service. He blogged about unreleased products and company finances

6399-529: Was published by the New York Times , in what Alexander and his supporters referred to as doxing . As of July 22, 2020, the blog is partially back online, with the content restored but commenting disabled. The successor blog, Astral Codex Ten , was launched on Substack on January 21, 2021. Alexander also blogged at the rationalist community blog LessWrong , and wrote a fiction book in blog format named Unsong . A revised version of Unsong

6480-450: Was published on May 24, 2024. The New Yorker states that the volume of content Alexander has written on Slate Star Codex makes the blog difficult to summarize, with an e-book of all posts running over nine thousand pages in PDF form. Many posts are book reviews (typically of books in the fields of social sciences or medicine) or reviews of a topic in the scientific literature. For example,

6561-733: Was supported by the Malaysian government. Following the suit, the Malaysian government proposed to "register" all bloggers in Malaysia to better control parties against their interests. This is the first such legal case against bloggers in the country. In the United States, blogger Aaron Wall was sued by Traffic Power for defamation and publication of trade secrets in 2005. According to Wired magazine, Traffic Power had been "banned from Google for allegedly rigging search engine results." Wall and other " white hat " search engine optimization consultants had exposed Traffic Power in what they claim

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