Ficsor Principles For Online Conduct
As we begin a New Year, let me propose five resolutions that we should all consider embracing. I’ll call them the “Ficsor” principles in honor of an Hungarian legal icon who equates, quite correctly in my opinion, the online dialogue practices of today’s fringe activist groups with his homeland’s repressive police state under communism:
1) Oppression: I resolve not to abuse our rights in free speech. I will be vigilant in guarding the rights of others to voice their opinions and disagree, but will never hide behind protected free speech in order to punish others for voicing their opinions.
2) Suppression: I resolve to reject the use of the mobosphere attack or Streisand Effect to influence, undermine or control online dialogue from dissenters.
3) Anonymity: I resolve to never publish anonymous and pseudonomous comments or posts that are derogatory towards someone.
4) Persecution: I resolve to voice my opinion vigorously and openly with utmost respect for the free speech rights of those with whom I disagree, and to discourage and condemn any attempts at coordinating the persecution of my online adversaries.
5) Intellectual Integrity: I resolve to only comment upon what I know after reasonably acquiring a fair, informed and balanced understanding of the issue.
These are our New Year’s resolutions at Dozier Internet Law. Will you put them into practice and spread the word? Please reference them as the “Fiscor Principles”.
By the way, here is Dr. Mihaly Ficsor’s perspective (edited for brevity):
I … truly do not want to deal with this weird quarrel anymore. It is completely useless to present arguments against heated ideological discourse and sheer hatred campaigns trying to suppress any contrary views. I am immune against it, … [i]n the decades through which we were constrained to live under a communist regime, this was so customary; everybody who did not agree with the collectivist ideology, there was no discussion about it; he simply became enemy and the agent of the “imperialist forces.” There were no blogs at that time; there were only newspapers and radio, but the style was the same as in these “digital activist” blogs; even the words and expressions are so familiar… [w]e who have suffered a lot – I too as a child and adolescent as a member of a family which, together with many others, was a victim of serious persecution because my uncle bravely spoke out against the communist ideology – have become resistant. Nevertheless, at the same time, we are sensitive to those phenomena where some people try to settle disputes in the style of those “glorious” years, and we may … use at least the wisdom of the saying: “Experience is a wonderful thing; it helps us to recognize our mistakes when we commit them again.”