There is a body of opinion in the public sector that somehow commenting via blogs or online is inherently wrong – that it somehow circumvents a strong and true hierarchy in place within government departments.
This is clearly not the case, as evidenced by the speed with which many departments and individual politicians have embraced various new media to engage with the citizenry, and also to disseminate information (both official and proposed). In Australia interim guidelines have been issued by the Australian Public Service Commission, which in essence state the obvious:
APS employees are entitled as citizens to do so (blog etc…), but they must avoid comment that might be interpreted as an official statement on behalf of their agency or that compromises perceptions of the employee’s ability to do his/her job in an unbiased or professional manner
This really is no different from any individual out there – if you pretend to be a company representative (or any fake ‘official’ person), then you are clearly misrepresenting yourself, and can mislead readers. If you go online and publicly challenge workplace decisions or belittle colleagues then, yes, you are being ‘unprofessional’.
But the police blog did not breech this rule – it was anonymous, factual, and not a misrepresentation of the author or the events he witnessed. It might have contained opinion and individual interpretation, but that is the point – the author is ENTITLED to those views as a private citizen – this is the whole idea of democracy.
Of course if you go online and make bad jokes, brag, or make an idiot of yourself then you will lose respect at work – but that’s just as likely to be the behaviour of someone who would piss people off anyway in meetings, during lunch breaks, or just being themselves around others – all part of the rich (and yes, annoying/frustrating) tapestry of human relations where we are all randomly dumped together in the workplace.
To ban this type of online authoring is a step towards censorship that governments have no right to take – it is a step towards censoring phone calls, SMS’s, web browsing, and letters (why not – who knows WHAT you are saying…?). Before you know it, we end up with the Great Firewall of China (soon to extend to Australia maybe?)
The concept of whistle-blowing is essential to maintain a healthy, accountable public sector. While online public forums are not the place for formal and detailed complaints, the occasional frustrations and contradictions that public service inevitably throws up should be made clear for all to see (it could even make for a good comedy show at times… ). It will lead to a wider appreciation of the daily balancing act public servants encounter, and hopefully lead to greater debate about why such things are that way in the first place. To clamp down on this is to claim that the public service is an infallible dictatorship, whose every word should be adhered to and never questioned. That would be as unhealthy in the UK or Australia as it is in North Korea and Iran (and as we can see from that country, it’s not an approach that has ultimate longevity).
What do you think – was it right to take down the blog?
Public sector staff have blogging rights too…
Posted by mdart on June 17, 2009
The case of the UK of the police officer who was disciplined for maintaining an anonymous blog has dark overtones for all public sector employees (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/lancashire/8104649.stm).
There is a body of opinion in the public sector that somehow commenting via blogs or online is inherently wrong – that it somehow circumvents a strong and true hierarchy in place within government departments.
This is clearly not the case, as evidenced by the speed with which many departments and individual politicians have embraced various new media to engage with the citizenry, and also to disseminate information (both official and proposed). In Australia interim guidelines have been issued by the Australian Public Service Commission, which in essence state the obvious:
This really is no different from any individual out there – if you pretend to be a company representative (or any fake ‘official’ person), then you are clearly misrepresenting yourself, and can mislead readers. If you go online and publicly challenge workplace decisions or belittle colleagues then, yes, you are being ‘unprofessional’.
But the police blog did not breech this rule – it was anonymous, factual, and not a misrepresentation of the author or the events he witnessed. It might have contained opinion and individual interpretation, but that is the point – the author is ENTITLED to those views as a private citizen – this is the whole idea of democracy.
Of course if you go online and make bad jokes, brag, or make an idiot of yourself then you will lose respect at work – but that’s just as likely to be the behaviour of someone who would piss people off anyway in meetings, during lunch breaks, or just being themselves around others – all part of the rich (and yes, annoying/frustrating) tapestry of human relations where we are all randomly dumped together in the workplace.
To ban this type of online authoring is a step towards censorship that governments have no right to take – it is a step towards censoring phone calls, SMS’s, web browsing, and letters (why not – who knows WHAT you are saying…?). Before you know it, we end up with the Great Firewall of China (soon to extend to Australia maybe?)
The concept of whistle-blowing is essential to maintain a healthy, accountable public sector. While online public forums are not the place for formal and detailed complaints, the occasional frustrations and contradictions that public service inevitably throws up should be made clear for all to see (it could even make for a good comedy show at times…
). It will lead to a wider appreciation of the daily balancing act public servants encounter, and hopefully lead to greater debate about why such things are that way in the first place. To clamp down on this is to claim that the public service is an infallible dictatorship, whose every word should be adhered to and never questioned. That would be as unhealthy in the UK or Australia as it is in North Korea and Iran (and as we can see from that country, it’s not an approach that has ultimate longevity).
What do you think – was it right to take down the blog?
Posted in Social Networking, commentary | Tagged: APS, blogging, democracy | Leave a Comment »