Blogging: Where to Draw the Line

If you are in the Philippines, you might be familiar with the popularity of a certain Australian blogger which detailed his life with his ex-lover as well as the “scam” that he faced while being with that guy. But that’s not all. There is also the matter of exposing the secrets that high-society people have in every club or gig that they attend.

This kind of blogging raises the legality issue in blogging. Before, plagiarism was one of the things that blogger don’t want to tamper with. Nowadays, its getting more complicated as blogger branch out and exposing accusations to people. Do we consider this as libel or slander? Wikipedia describes this as:

In law, defamation (also called vilification, slander, and libel) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressively stated or implied to be factual, that may harm the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government or nation. Most jurisdictions allow legal actions, civil and/or criminal, to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism

Does it apply to a personal blog where you could express your own opinions and views regardless of what other could think? Personally, I am torn on the subject but of course I consider blogging as a profession therefore this should be done responsibly. There is also the case of gossip bloggers who could be threading on dangerous grounds because of their blogging posts. Well, as these blogs are categorized as “gossip blogs”, readers should read this smartly.

What’s your take about this?