Who Can Talk Online?

This is a straightforward story on the face of it, but raises some questions the more you think about it. A civil servant has been sacked from DCSF for posting a negative comment about Hazel Blears on www.theyworkforyou.com, on a seemingly unknown site, using her work email address – see update below.

Straightforward case in a way, posting on the web on work time, bringing your employer into disrepute, there’s reason enough there for something to be done, be it written warning or, as in this case, dismissal.Still though, two one troubling element to the case.

First of all, given the posting in question was meant to be anonymous, how was it tracked down? That it was is no big deal in a way, very little on the web is truly anonymous and you don’t need to be particularly sophisticated to find things out. The real issue within it is why it was tracked and who did so? Are we spending money on tracking government critics online, even when the criticism has broken no laws? I’m never a fan of the phrase ‘it sends out a message’, but it is apt in this case. What impact will publicly tracking down a government critic online have on every one else’s confidence in participating? UPDATE 2: Seems this isn’t what happened at all then, see below.

Second,  I still get the feeling there’s a missed opportunity here. The internet both allows and has evolved to become a place for people from different backgrounds, locations, perspectives, etc to come together and discuss things with one another. One of the greatest opportunities government at all levels has in this regard is to allow genuine staff to talk to genuine service users online. It’s absurd to think that this doesn’t happen offline anyway, people who work in government happily talk to people who use government services about the service and any problems it may have. But when it comes to the internet, government is still trying to restrict the number of people who can talk publically to a select handful of approved communications officials.Freeing up civil servants to talk to people online might be one of the best ways to build genuine understanding on both sides.

Certainly I see it working regularly on the rest of the web, and it works well here in Bristol where councillors get involved with discussion on political blogs. So why not go a step further and encourage staff themselves to discuss their work and their thoughts for improvement with the public online? It’s the public that pay for these staff at the end of the day anyway.

UPDATE: Seems www.theyworkforyou.com and My Society had nothing to do with this, and weren’t even contacted by the journo who wrote the story. How odd. Did check the site for the comment before blogging, but assumed it must have been deleted.

UPDATE 2: Well, that’s a more straightforward story then, she emailed Hazel Blears the comments using her DCSF email account. Pretty simple trace to run then.