Thursday, March 01, 2007

Support Sarah's Freedom of Speech


It seems that local celebrity blogger (tales of wit and charm...), and In Utah this week columnist, Sarah Nielson (aka, sarahbellum), has been asked by her employers to quit blogging.

So what has Sarah done that would warrant such a request?

Apparently her new employers are not happy that Miss Nielson has mentioned that she misses her Mac, that she is struggling with change, and that coming back to work after taking a week off was painful.

Who hasn't felt these type of emotions from time to time (I know I have), but it seems that her new employers (see "british invasion") feel that Sarah should not just stop mentioning work, but that she should stop blogging altogether, even though she has never mentioned where she works, what she does for work, or the industry she works in.

Take a visit to Sarah's post titled "dooced?" to lend your support and to let her bosses know how serious we bloggers feel about our First Amendment rights.

(I even used pink Sarah)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

They're not First Amendment rights if it's not the government stopping her from speaking. The First Amendment is invoked everytime someone is stopped from speaking, but it only limits government action. Although one can quibble with whether her employer is making a good or reasonable decision, don't cast this as a First Amendment debate; it's not. It's a question pitting her speech against her employer's right to speech.

Anonymous said...

blah, blah, blah anonymous.

There is always a first time, and this is just another example of how corporation feel they own us 24-7.

Go Sarah!

Anonymous said...

This company may be exposing itself to liability for creating a hosile work environment.

Anonymous said...

I hate to say it, but her employeer is right on this one.

The Deseret Spectacle said...

I can't see how her employer is right.. I did a cursory look through her posts and couldn't see anything which could justify them demanding she not blog as a condition of employment.

I'd agree this isn't a classic first amendment debate, but these types of issues will come up more and more as we rely on corporations for our essential needs (employment, obviously), and as those needs come with increasingly onerous requirements.

But in the end, I think we're all kind of missing the point: Sarah is totally hot, and we should all be supporting her on that point if no other.

DS