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4.2 Communicating Through Blogs

The ability to collaborate with others on the web is often called collective intelligence, and
it has created opportunities and forums for people to instantly share information with others
around the world—via online communities—that were previously impossible. This collective
intelligence is open to anyone who logs in or creates an account on the site. This means, how-
ever, that nothing you write is private. As one observer wrote:

In the late 1990’s, the head of a large Internet computer company made the
statement, “Privacy is dead, get over it.” There’s some truth to that statement,
that in order to ensure one’s privacy, one should never make a single pub-
lic utterance or statement. For absolute privacy, say nothing online. However,
that is not a realistic strategy in this day and age. The Internet is the great
communicator vehicle, and it will not be silenced simply because of privacy
issues. (Grohol, 2005, para. 11)

Simply said, if you want privacy, don’t use the web. Most would agree, however, that the web
is a wonderful tool for learning, sharing, and interacting with others. You must be aware that
everything you say and share on the web is public information. This is especially true when
you post to blogs and social media sites, which we will discuss in this section and in Section
4.3. Your college class assignments will rarely require you to post information on a blog or on
social media. However, using these types of websites can be an excellent way to connect with

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