How important is self censorship?

Looking back at my previous blog platform which I self coded, I was amazed with the vast scope of my blog topics and the timeliness of my blog with current events in my life and in the news. This current blog pales in comparison to my old blog. The reason: self censorship.

I skimmed through my previous blog posts and saw they included various issues pertaining to my life, martial arts, dragon boat, design, military technology and science to name a few. In between those subjects, were touchy topics like sex scandals, racial issues, political ideas. As I breezed through those subjects, I wondered how a reader would perceive me through my blog content.

More importantly, I wondered how any potential employer would apply that perception. Would they applaud my honesty as well as my breadth of interests or would a single topic in my blog which triggers negative emotions squash my employability?

Being in the media industry myself, my thoughts immediately turned to Octavia Nasr, 20-year CNN veteran editor who was released from her position due to a personal Twitter post she made.

CNN on Wednesday removed its senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs, Octavia Nasr, from her job after she published a Twitter message saying that she respected the Shiite cleric the Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who died on Sunday.

[...]

Ms. Nasr, a 20-year veteran of CNN, wrote on Twitter after the cleric died on Sunday, “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah … One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”

~ nytimes.com

Are employees entitled to their own opinions or are they always deemed ambassadors for their company?

What about members of the media? Are we not entitled to our own public opinions? I understand we are supposed to be impartial and objective in our reporting. Yet, it is in human nature that everyone would have at least somewhat of an opinion. We try our very best not to let that bias stand in the way of objectivity in delivering our report to you.

Would you rather absorb a report knowing where the author or anchor stands, or assume the neutrality of what the media would have you consume?

Nasr explained her tweet in a blog post on cnn.com:

Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and a provides a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment on controversial or sensitive issues, especially those dealing with the Middle East.

[...]

I used the words “respect” and “sad” because to me as a Middle Eastern woman, Fadlallah took a contrarian and pioneering stand among Shia clerics on woman’s rights. He called for the abolition of the tribal system of “honor killing.” He called the practice primitive and non-productive. He warned Muslim men that abuse of women was against Islam.

~ cnn.com

Given that she provided this explanation, and was still released from her position, would it have been any different had she expressed her opinion more comprehensively in more than 140 characters? Was it more than a tweet misunderstanding that got her fired?

Providing a public knowledge of your opinion also provides implicit affirmation of that belief. If I state an opinion online, should my life circumstance change and my opinion change, would that blog post I had written previously come back to haunt me?

Google CEO Eric Schmidt had this to say:

“I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,” Schmidt said.

~ huffingtonpost.com

If your digital life could get you fired in real life, would employers go so far as to dig up your past on Google or elsewhere on the internet?

The Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins writes in his interview with Eric Schmidt that the CEO “predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.”

~ huffingtonpost.com

Maybe having to assume a new identity could extend to more than just young people, as in Nasr’s case. Although, if her cards are played right, the media attention could turn out to be quite a boost to her career.

For some, like an individual on the net called Rose Fu, the internet has seemed to have forgotten the story of how she came from Mongolia to the United States. Gone are her very well written and powerful accounts of her voyage to a new content and how she adjusted to this new society. The stories, from what I recall, might not have fit in with the professional image she now wants to maintain. The site which once contained those moving tales is now replaced by her web design portfolio.

Those seemingly honest moving stories, of triumphs over adversity, were the tales that inspired me to begin blogging.

With every post I make, the question of self-censorship comes to mind. This is evident in at least some of the 20 blog entries I have which remain in draft status along with the approximately 30 entries that I recently deleted.

Along with the dicey politically charged posts, are personal details of my life a factor in employment? Would posting clubbing pictures every week have any impact on my employability? I could be seen as partying too hard, yet conversely, be seen as being able to operate in a social environment.

I admit though, that posts that constantly whine about your life, describing your wallowing in self-pity, would probably be a turn off for an employer. Perhaps accounts of how negative situations were manipulated to have positive outcomes would be a better indication of how one carries themselves in person.

Again, to some extent it is an extension of self on your blog, but also an exercise in self-censorship.

In the end, photo blogging might be what I need to resort to if the issue is particularly touchy and I can capture it visually. That way, I can convey the story without having text picked apart for biases.