It's no longer surprising when something in the blogosphere sparks a fire that challenges the high and mighty. The Spocko story developing in San Francisco takes this idea to extremes, involving a self-described "fifth tier blogger with just 15 readers a day" crossing swords with one of the world's largest and most powerful media companies. One might presume the former has no influence and the latter an extraordinary amount. Watching how the community has developed around this issue, one might be wrong...
The emphasis here isn't the left vs. right political discussion but rather the collision of the small and large, the intersection of on and offline influence, and how the dynamics are changing. Here's the story in a nutshell: Spocko writes about media and political issues. After having his fill of the hate speech that passes for political discourse on a local talk radio station, he posted audio files of the offending comments on his blog. And then he wrote advertisers to alert them to the diatribes one supposes they were unwittingly underwriting. He didn't challenge the talk show hosts' right to say what they were saying, only questioning whether what was being said was consistent with the advertisers' values.
Not surprisingly, some major advertisers withdrew as station sponsors after hearing from Spocko. The owner of the station, ABC/Disney, reportedly responded with a cease and desist order challenging his fair use of copyrighted audio files. Spocko is nervous about confronting the power of Disney's legal team...with some justification since at this writing his site has been taken down by his ISP.
There are arguments to be made about free speech and commerical use of public airwaves. But we're also fascinated watching how the conversation has evolved on this topic, and how a community has sprung up around the "fifth tier blogger." Hundreds of posts have been written on the issue, the story has spilled into mainstream media including the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Daily News. And a YouTube video about Spocko's challenge generated more than 34,000 views. Spocko has gained a lot of attention by tilting at hate speech. A site that had almost no in linking started to get a lot and to develop a following (or at least until the ISP got nervous about Disney's attorneys). Now other voices have taken up the cause and a community has sprung up, energized by this topic.
