The Problems with A Day of Silence on the Blogosphere

April 18, 2007

The Problems with A Day of Silence on the Blogosphere

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You may have heard of A Day of Silence on the Blogosphere". (I learned about it today from Lorelle. Because of the recent Virginia Tech (college) massacre, bloggers are asked to go silent (not post, I guess) on Monday, April 30th.

(For the record, I haven't visited the site yet.)

I have two problems with this.

First, why just Virginia? I know it was horrible. Any type of violence like that is. But we live in a violent world. Watch Canada's evening news, where they tell you what's going on. (America's evening news is a joke and really worthless.)

Thousands die each day needlessly. And people do nothing about it.

What happened in Virginia was terrible, but it's not all the deaths of that day in the world. It's rather self-centered of us (Americans) to think that.

Second, a Bloggers Day of Silence does nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's about as worthless as it gets.

Imagine if all the bloggers all over the world don't post anything for a day. What'll happen?

People wont get to read new posts that day.

That's it.

Days of Silence or Silent rallies only work if a lot of people are gathered together in one place. (If there are TV cameras near by, all the better. If a thousand people stood together in silence without tv cameras, would anyone know? Or care?) Whether it's christian students gathering at the flag pole once a year, or gay/gay friendly students not talking for a day, it's only effective if others see it.

People not posting for a day isn't "seen." It'll be barely felt.

Instead, talk.

Write about what the world needs to see changed.

Talk to your friends.

Instead of a Day of Blog silence, communities should gather together on April 30th and be silent together. Or loud together.

Silence is stronger with others.

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This article was written by david and published on
April 18, 2007 at 7:30am.
The article was given the following tags:

[...] Misguided Thoughts

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Shhh… Silence on Scavenger Saturday · 2k Blogge
Apr 28, 2007
5:06pm

[...] Misguided Thoughts wrote, “…a Bloggers Day of Silence does nothing. Absolutely nothing. It’s about as worthless as it gets. Imagine if all the bloggers all over the world don’t post anything for a day. What’ll happen? People wont get to read new posts that day. That’s it.” [...]

Yeah, totally agree with

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Benjamin Solah
Apr 19, 2007
5:12am

Yeah, totally agree with you. Something like 150 people were massacred by US troops in Afghanistan that day but that didn't attract outrage from the media. I'd go as far to say that it's a racist idea that American deaths are worth more than the deaths of people from other countries.

And definitely think people should speak and not be silent. People should speak about the violence of the US government abroad and at home, which is on a much larger scale than the sad actions of one student.

I second, third, forth and

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dawn
Apr 21, 2007
4:24am

I second, third, forth and fifth that. It is a tragidy, what happend to the students at Virgina Tech.

Recently, my town has had quite a problem with violence in the school. A young man made a manifesto, and a video (which he posted on YouTube) and was fortunately stopped before anything bad could happen. It has brought alot of copy-cats out. Unfortunately, the root cause was and has not been taken care of. Bullying. The school system is trying to get past the incident, and not addressing the underlying issue.

More important than not blogging for one day, would be like you said, to blog about the issue. Talk about it. Share. But dont ignore it, this type of thing is going to happen again and again if bullying is not taken seriously by those who are supposed to be in charge.

What that young man did was horrid, and he was obviously really disturbed. The lives lost is devistating. We need to take care of this, "nip it in the bud", so to speak, if we want to stop it from happening again.

Finally, some one who is

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ourman
Apr 18, 2007
9:25am

Finally, some one who is still thinking. I applaud everything you just wrote. I've been having the same argument on another comment box.

Link here: http://tinyurl.com/2x7zgy

A worldwide day of silence for victims of guns everywhere? I am in favour of that - especially if the aim is to boost gun control and arms sales.

Another vote of support for

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Matthew
Apr 18, 2007
3:43pm

Another vote of support for what you said.

More than 30 ppl are murdered in Bahgdad every day and some 3,000 American youths are killed by firearms every year so why are we making such a fuss of this incident?

[...] already posted on how

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the Anti-Day of Silence on the Blogosphere | Misguided Thoug
May 1, 2007
2:56am

[...] already posted on how I thought that this was a very stupid idea. And I stand by that. Okay, some people [...]

I think that is very right,

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Breana
Dec 13, 2007
4:02am

I think that is very right, people all over the world die evryday. Virginia Tech was a very horrible thing, but it wasnt the only big death. Yeah they may be kids and still have yet to expireinced their lives, but on that day there were probaly hundreds of others who died on that day,.

So many missed signals on

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peoplesearch
Jan 21, 2008
11:34pm

So many missed signals on VT, it's really hard to determine where to lay blame. The admin for sure was inept throughout, but this guy was a hardcore nutjob.

So many missed signals on

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peoplesearch
Jan 21, 2008
11:34pm

So many missed signals on VT, it's really hard to determine where to lay blame. The admin for sure was inept throughout, but this guy was a hardcore nutjob.

April 18, 2007